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Alan Parsons Project
The Essence of Studio Rock

Keyboard Magazine, August 1986
By Jim Aikin & Bob Doerschuk

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The ties between rock and technology have always been tight; as multi-tracking, sophisticated sound processing and other new practices became available, they unleashed the collective imagination of an entire generation and helped redefine the creative process.

For many musicians -- the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and countless aspirants to their eminent positions -- the studio became home base. This shift of orientation away from the stage had enormous impact. Live performances, the ancient forum for musical expression throughout pre-technological history, took on a secondary importance as a medium through which audiences were transformed into record buyers. Where concerts had once exited solely to communicate music, they became more and more a means to sell albums.

For almost every band in the industry, no matter how much they might enjoy playing on stage, live gigs were no longer the primary focus. Most income derived from record sales, while concert tours could actually lose money, so naturally greater energy went into the studio product. Even such definitive live acts as the Rolling Stones were disappearing into studios and emerging with "concept" discs so sophisticated that they could not be adequately reproduced before audiences.

During the early years of this experimentation, a young musician named Alan Parsons was watching developments with great interest. As a child he had learned to play piano, flute, and guitar. The talent was there, but the enthusiasm to display it on stage was missing. After leaving school, rather than resign himself to an endless trudge through London's club circuit, Parsons took a job doing television camera research at EMI. This, too, proved tedious, so he transferred to the tape duplicating department.

It was here that Parsons heard that the album that would change his career. The Beatles' Revolver was a bridge between the live feel of their earlier work and the pure studio artistry of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It mixed raw energy with deft overdubbing, and covered ground that no group at that time could have covered live.

The sound of Revolver, and the possibilities it opened, stirred Parsons. Here, at last, was the key that opened the door to his music. Thanks to the Beatles, Parsons was reborn as one of a new breed, a pure studio rocker. He would soon become a symbol of the turnaround that rock had undergone since its genesis among unrecorded roadhouse performers.

In October 1967, at age 18, Parsons went to work as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road studios, where he earned his first credit on the Beatles LP of the same name. He became a fixture there, engineering such projects a Paul McCartney's Wildlife and Red Rose Speedway, five albums by the Hollies, and Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, for which he received a Grammy Award nomination. Eventually he began working as a producer, with Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, Ambrosia, Al Stewart, John Miles, Pilot, and other artists.

Even while building a reputation inside the industry as a master dial twirler, Parsons kept alive his interest in doing music of his own. An opportunity to do so presented itself when keyboardist Eric Woolfson, a man of artistic ambition himself, met Parsons and offered to collaborate with him. They hit it off creatively and personally -- Woolfson also became Parsons' manager. Their partnership was the seed from which the Alan Parsons Project was born.

From the start the Project was unusual, even by the standards of progressive rock. For one thing, true to their charter, they never played live. The hits they did rack up, among them "Time" and "Games People Play," from The Turn Of A Friendly Card, and the title cut from Eye In The Sky, made it into the charts without detouring through the doors of a single concert hall.

The group's musical pattern was clear from the start as well. Their debut album, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, released in 1976 after two years of work, introduced several elements that would characterize all future Project releases: a single thematic thread (in this case, the writings of Edgar Allan Poe), a revolving series of lead singers (Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel, Allan Clarke of the Hollies, Colin Blunstone of the Zombies, Arthur Brown of his own Crazy World, etc.), instrumental interludes that emphasize written form over improvisation, and extended arrangements in which fairly simple tunes are fitted together and decorated with complex textures. The pieces have frequently featured battalions of string and wind players, all diligently padding a punchy rhythm track, as if in imitation of a synthesizer player's imitation of an orchestral part. If the results are occasionally problematic, they are more often memorable exercises in stylistic fusion, as on The Fall Of The House Of Usher, a five-movement electronic, choral, orchestral, and sound effects extravaganza from Tales Of Mystery And Imagination.

Through the years, Parsons and Woolfson have absorbed some far-flung influences and fed them back through the Project blender. On one album, Eve, we hear echoes of the Beach Boys' God Only Knows in the doo-be-doos of Secret Garden, while the tick-tock of early tehno-pop rears its electronic head of Lucifer. Some sea-chantey accordion adds salt spray to the title cut on The Turn Of A Friendly Card. They even made room for composer Andrew Powell to contribute a few moments of Ligeti-type tone-cluster strangeness with Total Eclipse, from I Robot. But essentially, their approach has stayed the same from the start, changing only slightly with the prevailing winds.

Except with respect to using keyboards, Stereotomy, the group's latest LP, is also its least orchestral to date. Synthesizers play a bigger role than ever, slicing the beat on the title song and In The Real World, setting the groove on Urbania, laying down a mean sequence on Where's the Walrus, -- in effect, supplanting the orchestra. The future will determine whether Stereotomy is a milestone in the Project's stylistic evolution, or whether the group will ever be coaxed onto the concert stage. Today we have only the present to consider -- Parsons the master producer, sometime Fairlight programmer, and hitmaker, Woolfson the sure-fingered keyboardist, and a hard-rocking LP. For the moment, that's plenty.

Woolfson: Well, when we did Tales of Mystery and Imagination, there was no such thing as a sampling keyboard, but even then we wanted to take a lot of sounds that we had developed and turn them into full keyboard things. So we built an instrument called the Projectron, which was based on tape loops, more or less along the lines of the Mellotron. It was enormously complicated. Not being too technical, I have no idea how it actually worked. Equipment has since come along that can do in moments what it took us days, weeks, or months to do on the Projectron. But we were at least able to build up some sounds of our own.

What other keyboards were you using back then?

Woolfson: In the old days it was Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric pianos and acoustic piano. From working in Abbey Road, though, we learned one trick the Beatles used to do, which was to use old-fashioned uprights for good rock and roll noises. We used all the things they had used and left lying about the studio. The only other keyboard I can recall was a Baldwin electric harpsichord, which I think they used too.

You used a vocoder on Tales.

Woolfson: That's right, that was one of the earliest uses of vocoder. It was a machine that the EMI scientists had developed, a very cumbersome thing that was very much in its early stages. They had gotten it together in a way that let us do some relatively new things with it.

How has your equipment changed since then?

Woolfson: The main change is that we now operate on 48-track digital with two Sony digital 24-tracks. That has made a tremendous difference in the quality of the records. Stereotomy was our first fully digital album, although we mixed the last few on to digital.

So it has a better signal-to-noise ratio than your previous work.

Woolfson: It's more than that. I had noticed over the years that when you recorded a basic track, it was always wonderfully exciting. When you got that take, there was something magical about it. But when you finished the record, maybe months later, and listened back to it, it never quite matched up to that original feel. When we started working with digital, we began to notice that you never lost the feel. That excitement was always there. We realized that the problem with the analog system had been in the actual physical deterioration of the tape. On Tales Of Mystery there was a track called The Raven, on which we did so many overdubs that we physically began to wear the tape out. We had to do safety copies to preserve it before we had finished. Eventually, after a tape has gone over the head enough times, something disappears, something that you don't lose in digital. That makes a hell of a difference.

Parsons: There are a couple of other interesting things about how you can use the new technology to make certain allowances. Our studio area is small and the control room is large, which is keeping with the current trend, since most of the time is spent in the control room these days.

You've set things up so that you can play the keyboards directly from the control room?

Parsons: That's right. And we've got a fairly comprehensive MIDI system set up 'round the room, so that wherever you fancy setting up a particular keyboard, you can plug it in and send MIDI signals out to anywhere else in the studio. You can use any of the keyboards as the master.

Are you using MIDI switching boxes?

Parsons: Yes, a 9-by-9 matrix made by Quark [16-24 Brewery Rd., London N7, England]. Another interesting thing is that we've built a mobile equipment rack that hold the normal 19-inch gear, such as digital delays, echo devices, clock devices, and so on. But there's also a modified A-frame keyboard rack sitting on top of it, so it's an effects and keyboard frame that you can move anywhere around the room without lifting. The effects fill the wasted section you usually have in an A-frame rack.

What keyboards are you currently using? You've got a Fairlight CMI listed on your last few albums.

Woolfson: Actually, we didn't use the Fairlight on Stereotomy. We found that our old model Fairlight has been superseded by things like the [E-mu] Emulator II and that most wonderful keyboard instrument the [Yamaha] DX7, which revolutionized things for us. The old Fairlight was rather cumbersome.

Parsons: In the last couple of weeks we made a decision that the Fairlight and the [New England Digital] Synclavier are beyond our reach. The price tag was just too high. I'm not going to spend that kind of money. When the Fairlight came out, it was 15,500 pounds, a lot of money, but it was so new and wonderful that I just couldn't pass it up. Now, though, you're talking about 48,000 pounds for the Fairlight Series III, and you're really just talking about long samples with clever manipulation. I just can't justify that kind of expense.

What other gear are you using, then?

Parsons: On the album we're doing now, we've got a PPG linked to the Waveterm sampling system, which has been quite fun.

Woolfson: I think that's a PPG Wave 2.2, which has been modified, although Richard Cottle, a keyboard player we've just introduced into the group, has now got himself a 2.3. He's also got a [Sequential] Prophet, which is still a very versatile studio machine. There's acoustic piano and the Emulator II as well. Several of us use DX7s, and we've got the [Yamaha] TX816 rack.

Parsons: We use the TX816 with the DX7 to get a nice, full sound. I'm sure I speak for thousands in saying that the DX7 is such a remarkable machine in itself, and when you've got essentially nine of them working together [with the TX816], you can't believe what you can do.

What did you use to get that large brass sound in the title track to Stereotomy?

Woolfson: That was probably from the Philharmonia Orchestra. It has a wonderful brass section -- bass trombones, tubas, and stuff like that.

Did you sample them?

Woolfson: No. If we're using an orchestra, we never sample it. We refuse to use the sampling device as a means of putting musicians out of work. If a song needs an orchestra, it gets an orchestra. Sampling is for sounds that cannot be created in a conventional way.

So, on that tune, you had the orchestra play along with the master tape?

Woolfson: That's right. The orchestra was an overdub.

Parsons: It sounds sort of blasé to say, "We've always been a no-expense-spared bunch." But we've never been interested in cutting costs by doing an orchestral part on synth.

Do you think that the orchestral sound is going to become dated?

Parsons: Well, it already has, to a certain degree. But you only have the unions to blame for that. It's a horrendous problem. In England, you simply cannot put orchestra on a single release anymore, due to financial considerations.

Because they insist on having a royalty arrangement?

Parsons: Because the players in an orchestra have be paid every time the song is aired on television. So record company A&R men are saying, "Oh, we love the record, but you're going to have to go away and do it with a synth, because we can't make the video with strings on it." And if you're doing TV things, if there's any synthesizer part that sounds remotely like another instrument, hen they say, "Aha! That sounds like a brass part. We'd better pay a brass section for that." It's beyond belief.

Stereotomy does sound more electronic, less orchestral, than your previous albums.

Woolfson: The orchestra is more integrated, but it's certainly there. It gives the music a dynamic range. People who are able to get Stereotomy on compact disc will be more aware of that than the cassette buyers. Unfortunately, Arista, in it's wisdom, has decided to withdraw all our compact discs from the market. They tell us it's to do with the fact that we are entitled to a royalty on them, which gives them problems. Unless we reduce our royalties voluntarily, they're taking our compact discs off the market. I'm sure you can imagine our attitude toward that. I would urge anybody to find Stereotomy on compact disc while they can. It was recorded digitally for the specific purpose of sounding great on CD.

In doing orchestral charts, do you rough out the parts first on keyboards?

Parsons: No, not at all. I've only done that as an occasional accident. I've put certain parts down, then said, "Oh, that doesn't work on a synth. That sounds more like a string part."

How do you write your material and your arrangements together?

Parsons: Eric plays his tune on a piano and hums along, then leaves it to me and the guys to do something with it. It might take a whole day before we've actually got anything together that sounds like a record. Often we'll spend three or four hours doing a sequence. Then we'll find that it doesn't work, and we'll try something else. It's very wasteful, but we're blessed with paying our own recording costs, so there are no record company A&R men breathing down our necks and saying, "Hey, guys! This is costing too much money!"

Quite often, Eric, you wind up singing lead on Project tunes. How do you determine which songs are good vehicles for you as a singer?

Woolfson: That's a matter of some disagreement between Alan and me. Alan likes real singers. I'm not a real singer. I don't get out there and belt it out every night. I've got kind of a virgin voice, which has its uses. The fact that it isn't like sandpaper after all these years does give it a slightly different quality, but Alan prefers the rough-edged voice. When I do sing lead, it is not always with his blessing. In the early days, my tracks tended to do very well on radio: Time, Eye In The Sky, and so on. Normal record company politics dictated that, if Woolfson's voice sells, then you've got to have a lot more Woolfson. So I ended up doing too many tracks on the last couple of albums. On Stereotomy, I think I only sing lead for about 30 seconds. The fact is that we have to be able to change. How many other recording acts can say to the lead singer, "Well, no, thank you. You take the back seat for now, and we'll use somebody else's voice."

Parsons: Personally, I felt that Eric's vocal sound wasn't necessary as a fixed part of our sound. Our research has shown us that our identity is governed by things other than vocal sound. I have yet to understand what it is that makes people hear a Project song on the radio and say, "Oh, yeah. That's the Alan Parsons Project, no doubt about it. Couldn't be anybody else." I can't hear that! In a way, I would love to be able to hear the sound through fresh ears, to hear what it is in our sound, or in my sound as a producer, that makes us distinctive. I'm unable to recognize it, although I find it very flattering that others can. That enables us to stick different vocalists on our records and not lost the Project identity. I mean, you would think that if you stuck Gary Brooker on a record, everybody would say, "Oh, yeah. I remember him, It sounds like 'Whiter Shade Of Pale.'" But people aren't saying that; they're saying, "It sounds like Alan Parsons, and I think I've heard the voice before."

Have you ever considered doing an album with one featured vocalist?

Woolfson: I don't think Alan would want to. He believes that this ability to change vocalists is an essential part of the Project. But I think we might well do something with another artist in the future, a fusion between the Project and somebody else, and in that case we might use one great vocalist all the way through. But I think the idea of flexible lead vocalists is the wave of the future. When we watched the Live Aid show last year, we thought, "It's just a development of what the Project always intended, a fusion of different people coming together."

Is the Alan Parsons Project a full-time job for you, or do you work with other people too?

Woolfson: My role with the Project is somewhat diminished on the keyboard front since Richard Cottle came along, because he is such an electronic expert, and I don't have any pretensions of being a man who creates sounds. I tend to play them on acoustic-type keyboards. We've been leaning rather more heavily on synthesized sound for a while, so his role has been more dominant there. Still, I don't work with other people too much. The Project is pretty full-time.

How has the addition of Cottle affected the Project's writing process?

Woolfson: Richard does something kind of unusual. He plays about five or six different keyboards in the studio live, with his own mix. It's like a stage setup, and he gives Alan a stereo feed of everything. A lot of Alan's work is done for him that way. And I'm out there on the acoustic grand piano, which is now MIDIed, so I can use it to trigger DX7 sounds, PPG sounds, or anything else. Richard learns the track along with us and the drummer, bassist, and guitarist. Then, depending on what we decide to do, he may want to sequence something by himself. Every time we change the routine, of course, he has to change the sequence. But his sequences tend to fit into what we're playing, rather than our playing having to fit into his prearranged sequence. More than most people, we prefer to keep the live kind of feel.

What kind of sequencer does Richard use?

Parsons: He favors the Roland MSQ-700. Personally, I favor the Linn 9000; I think that's one of the easiest multiphonic sequencers available. It's like having Page R on the Fairlight, except that it's polyphonic.

Have you had any technical problems with the 9000?

Parsons: Yeah. Who hasn't? I don't think there's a 9000 owner on God's Earth that hasn't had problems with it. The problem is with the industry. They think, "Oh, God, if we don't get the thing out by yesterday, somebody else is gong to come out with it before we can get it out." The Linn was clearly a machine which was released six months earlier than it should have been, purely because of the fear that somebody else was going to come up with something better before they had sorted out all the bugs.

Have you installed a piano in your studio yet?

Parsons: Like Eric, I have a Grotrian Steinweg, but there isn't enough space for me to put the thing into my studio. It's in my drawing room -- my living room, as you people in America would say -- which is in another part of the house. But whenever I want to record it, I'll simply run lines through when the kids are at school. It's not a huge distance, only a hundred feet or something, so there's no problem there.

What's your secret for getting a good piano sound?

Parsons: Well, on the last two albums I use cheapo Radio Shack PZMs and got really good results. Just stuck 'em on the ledge.

Do you prefer going for a tighter direct sound on the piano, rather than using room echo?

Parsons: I like room echo, but I've never had any luck making it blend in with the other sounds we make. If we recorded it solo, yes, I'd love it. But I've grown up with the close-mike sound. Besides, you can do so much with external devices these days that you really don't need to think too much about capturing a room sound. You can do it all afterward. Purists would argue that I'm full of crap but if you spend enough time, you can pretty much duplicate any mike technique with external devices easily.

What kind of reverb would you use to create a realistic concert hall sound?

Parsons: Well, I've always been fairly keen on the Quantec room simulator. I've recently been introduced to the cheaper Yamaha gear. For a price of 1,100 pounds, it's beyond belief what you can do with these things. And now you got the SPX-90, which costs 500 pounds and does every effect in the book. I just went to the AES [Audio Engineering Society] Show in Montreaux, heard the SPX-90, and said, "Yeah, I'll take two" [laughs]

How might you spice up a synthesizer sound?

Parsons: It depends on what kind of sound you're talking about. If it's a spikey sound, a small pitch change through a digital harmonizing device will generally add life, if only by putting it in stereo. Some sort of digital processing to give the sound a bit of phase, a bit of delay on itself, is helpful. But the key to any of these things is experimentation. I think all good music relies to a very large degree on experimentation, and that's something I never want to turn by back on.

If you had to record a whole album with just one keyboard, which instrument would that be?

Woolfson: There's only one you can really do that with: an acoustic grand piano. It's a whole orchestra in itself.

Have you ever thought about doing that?

Woolfson: That could be a little limiting. I do have plans to do some recording on my own which will strongly feature the piano. That's something that has gotten lost. With the development of electronic instruments, a whole new generation has come along of people who have never gone near an acoustic piano. It's really odd for somebody like me, who assumed in the early days that every synthesizer player must have started on piano, to come across someone like Richard Cottle, a brilliant synthesizer player who really cannot handle the basics of a piano at all. Asking him to do a piano part is like as king a violinist to suddenly start playing a double bass. It's a whole different medium. You can easily go from acoustic piano to synthesizer, but you can't go the other way so easily. This has also given rise to a generation of writers who are used to composing for instruments with much greater limitations in many ways than the acoustic piano [i.e., synthesizers]. Because I'm open to their ideas, but I've got more historical perspective than they do, I think I can create more musical compositions than they do. Everyone is now triggering and sequencing to such an extent that they've become slaves to their equipment. I really have to be master of the machine, though.

You use the word "musical" specifically with reference to the piano, as contrasted to electronic keyboards.

Woolfson: That's right. There is something automatic, in every sense of the word, about a machine. It forces you along a pretty inflexible path, creatively speaking.

Though your albums are highly produced, it sounds as if you're taking a point of view that de-emphasizes the importance of technology in music.

Woolfson: The studio is an instrument, and should be used as such. But that doesn't mean that everything needs to be automated. There is a healthy way of using the studio without restricting your creativity. I'm afraid this all sounds a bit vague, but from being around studios and seeing how other records are made, I really believe this. People do spend an inordinate amount of time loading up their sequencers. To me, the vital part of a song is when the lead vocal goes on. That is the icing on the cake. I've seen too many records where the obsession is the triggered drum sound, and they make do with substandard vocal performances because they're more into the basic mechanical sound of the track. That has to be the wrong approach. I know there's a market for it, but it's still wrong. It's the lead vocal that determines the quality of a record. And nothing sets up a lead vocal as well as a keyboard-inspired song, even if it isn't actually played on a keyboard. We do that a lot: We have the keyboards there for substance, and then remove them and let the guitars take it.

What kind of musical background do you have?

Woolfson: They tried to teach me to play piano when I was a kid, from about age eight. I had a mental block when it came to reading music, though. I still can't do it, so I just developed a good ear. Through playing things by ear, I got into composing a few things by ear. I got into composing a few things, and I became a songwriter. I came down to London from Glasgow on a school holiday at about age 15. I did that for about two or three years, until I finished school, and then I moved to London full-time. I was a songwriter -- a pretty unsuccessful one -- and I did some independent production. But I got some interesting background through the people on Denmark Street, the publishing street, which was London's Tin Pan Alley. I used to do sessions with [guitarist] Jimmy Page and [bassist/keyboardist] John Paul Jones, people like that; although they were becoming respected musicians, they still did demo sessions. So I did quite a few basic keyboard sessions. I joined up with a bunch of guys in Manchester who eventually became 10cc. I left them shortly before that happened, though. When I met Alan I gave up the idea of being a songwriter and producer because I figured I would be better off guiding his career, so I started managing him. After doing that successfully for a couple of years, I developed this idea I'd had previously of doing an Edgar Allan Poe album. Alan had the ability I was lacking; I could write the music, but he could put the sounds in my head onto tape. He's an extraordinary engineering and production talent.

Alan, what about your background?

Parsons: I studied flute and piano as a child... It sounds like a Bruce Springsteen story: [in American accent] "I bought my first guitar at the age of 12" [laughs]. I joined a school band and played in basement clubs around the Soho area of London. I played lead guitar with a blues band during the blues boom of the late '60s. I was just another guitar player trying to sound like Eric Clapton. But at the same time I was trying to get a job at Abbey Road. Eventually, Abbey Road became more important than trying to be a struggling musician.

How long were you associated with Abbey Road?

Parsons: I had a long-standing relationship with them as an engineer. Probably ten years.

As you listen to the early Project records, such as Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, are there many things you would do differently if you were to record them again today?

Woolfson: A very good question. I think drum sounds have changed dramatically, in particular the snare drum. We could certainly update the sound quite a bit from a technical point of view to something pretty close to digital. One thing I wouldn't change is the vocal sound. Occasionally at Abbey Road I've heard a Beatles track without the vocals. It sounds so mundane, but the minute you put the voices on it really comes to life. It was the voices that were so special about the Beatles, and the same is true for most records.

Parsons: I wouldn't change very much. To me, Tales Of Mystery represents everything that was right about what the Project was meant to be. It took risks. It was experimental. It had some good songs. It had a good choice of vocalists and musicians. Everything about it was right. It did well and it paved the way for the future. If anything, I felt that through media pressure, we kind of deteriorated artistically after Tales Of Mystery up to the last album. Stereotomy is really our best album in years.

What was the nature of this deterioration?

Parsons: We were manipulated into making music that was too commercial for what the Project originally set out to do. It was not meant to be a band that went in its own direction, not into a safe area as defined by the media or a record company, which is where we were in fact led. I mean, you're always getting these people who say, "You know, we can't sell your album unless you have a hit single, so make me an album full of hit singles, and I'll sell it." And even though people say that, it can actually work in directly the opposite way. If you make an album that has nothing commercial on it, you can sell millions. Pink Floyd proved that time and time again.

Woolfson: What gets released as a single is often a source of some discontent with us. Arista seems to be very happy in the area of black music, as witness the success they've had with the Whitney Houstons, the Dionne Warwicks, and the Aretha Franklins of the world. We felt very much in tune with Arista when we started out with them in the days of I, Robot (sic). But I can't pretend that we're travelling along the same road these days. I don't think they know what to do with us, in terms of radio in America or hit records. Singles have become so important to them that their prestige seems to ride on them. They don't know how to promote quality product like us outside of hit singles, and that's a problem for them and us. I don't mean to bad-mouth Arista, but you do run into the same kind of egos in every record company. These sorts of problems will always exist between artists and record companies.

Would you rather have seen some other cut released as a single from Stereotomy other than the title track?

Woolfson: I thought there were better choices, although I don't doubt that it was a very good track for AOR [album-oriented rock] radio. It never seemed to me to have any meaning for the people who would go and buy Top 40 singles.

Rock has changed a lot since the Project appeared in the mid '70s. Do you think your music reflects these changes?

Woolfson: You obviously change with the times in terms of technical developments. We jumped at digital as soon as it appeared. But the whole new wave thing is a curious phenomenon. A lot of artists who came out of new wave are now heading in the direction we've been following. Acts like Public Image Ltd. are making much better records than ever, with a much more mature and professional stance. These people are really developing into wonderful creative units. We're all going to end up roughly in the same area, known as rock music. How we get there is very different, though.

You started from the well-crafted, well-produced end, which gave you a certain edge.

Woolfson: Quality is really what the Project is about. It's an engineering and production approach, which is not easy to maintain, especially in the face of cynicism from record company people who don't really care about that. It means nothing to them. I do look forward to a time when we can have more freedom to control our own marketing efforts and take advantage of the enormous importance of quality in music and sound.

What about you, Alan? Are you trying to orient your work around trendy new sounds, or are you content to, let's say, grow old gracefully?

Parsons: The last thing I want to do is grow old gracefully. I like to feel that we're right in there competing with everybody else. It would be a disaster to fall into a middle market and become adult contemporary, when we should really be album-oriented. I would hate to be on the same program with Frank Sinatra and that type. I want to be thought of a someone whose music could be played on a current kids' radio station at any time.

Since you've never been a performing band, at least you don't have to wrestle with the spectre of youthful credibility onstage before the public.

Parsons: That's true. I could be 60 years old now without people knowing about it...which I'm not, incidentally.

How has the fact that you haven't played in public affected your music?

Woolfson: It has obviously intensified the studio elements. I imagine that most writers in other bands get a buzz out of live performances, and that has an effect on their writing. Bruce Springsteen writes with a real feeling for what the audience will respond to; I can't imagine him without it. And, as I don't have that kind of contact, I suppose my writing is limited to one area. On the other hand, there's a benefit to being so intensely into the studio side of things that allows me to perhaps delve further into a different area of creativity.

Since you're not necessarily concerned with how an audience will react to a song, you work more from your own intuition.

Woolfson: You're quite right. Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon was toured for about 18 months before it was ever recorded, so it's no accident that they knew what the audience would respond to when they finally went into the studio.

And there's the risk for you, since you don't necessarily have that insight.

Woolfson: Yes. Perhaps you've touched on one of the reasons why we haven't been as successful as Pink Floyd.

What about the long-term future of the Alan Parsons Project? How long will you keep the experiment alive?

Parsons: I'm very realistic about that. All good things come to an end. Of course, I'm hoping that we're not on that road now. I have great hopes for what lies ahead. But it can't go on forever. I can't believe that the Alan Parsons Project is going to last another 25 years. Yet as long as I'm about making music, whether its under the name of the Alan Parsons Project or some new name, or whether it's doing films and TV, I feel like I have another good 20 or 25 years worth of work to look forward to.