The making of Into The Red

This all started during a visit to Westminster Music Library in Autumn 1997. Along with a few other books, I took away the sheet music to ‘Out Of The Blue’. Strumming through the songs on a guitar or pounding them out on the piano, I was immediately struck at how great they all sounded. From what little music I could read, all the vocal harmonies seemed to be there too. Not for the first time, I bemoaned the lack of a second (or third, or fourth) larynx – and asked myself ‘Can I justify an afternoon or two in the studio to see how all this sounds?’

A few weeks and one library renewal later, I travelled down to RMS Studios in Selhurst, taking along my good friend and sometime collaborator Sean Macreavy. Our plan was to do side three. The session was a lot of fun, and the harmonies came out pretty well. (It also fooled me into thinking that I should be able to knock off the rest of the tracks in a couple more afternoons).

The question now was how to approach those remaining songs. Hiring other musicians was out for financial reasons but I wanted to do something more than just alternate Guitar and/or Piano run-throughs – at least on some of the tracks. As time went on, I began to experiment more with vocal harmonies.

As Sean returned to Manchester, his parting shot was ‘Why don’t you do The Whale (the album’s instrumental ) as an acapella piece?’ An irresistible idea, eventually realised by firstly, overdubbing each set of unison notes onto a track, and then forming the chords by playing the mixing desk like a keyboard. Anybody still following this will doubtless realise that it wasn’t a wholly original idea – 10cc did it on ‘I’m Not In Love’. Still, in my opinion, ‘The Whale’ forms the (ahem!) high-water mark of the album. Andy LeVien, studio owner and engineer seemed to enjoy it anyway, maybe because another twenty hours of studio time had been clocked.

From here on, I had to reign in my freewheeling tendencies somewhat (it was around this time that the punning title ‘Into The Red’ was born!) and the rest of the songs were recorded as time and finances would allow. By late 1998, I had everything in the can apart from ‘Birmingham Blues’. In all honesty I never could stand this song, I’d deliberately left it until last because I couldn’t think of what to do with it. I thought the solution had been found when I ‘sub-contracted’ it out to the skiffle band ‘The Lonnigans’. Unfortunately, their busy schedule nixed that idea, and partly through pressure of time, I simply hived a few interesting sounds off the more experimental pieces of ‘The Whale’, and called it ‘Birmingham Blues’. If nothing else it must rank as one of the most radical cover version ever!

A quick ‘call’ to Alan Partridge and the thing was finished. Recording it was tremendous fun and not a little indulgent – dare I say it was made in the spirit of the original. Perhaps the nicest compliments that I have been paid so far, are from those people who have said that listening to ‘Into The Red’ has sent them back to the source and rekindled their affection for the magnificent original.

Paul McNulty – May 1999