TIM HAWES & PETE KIRTLEY: Writing & Recording Hear'Say's 'Pure & Simple'

Tim Hawes (left) and Pete Kirtley.

The world is full of manufactured pop bands, but the innovation of the TV show Popstars is to turn the manufacturing process itself into entertainment. Sam Inglis talks to the producers behind the resulting smash hit single.

You would have to have been living under a rock this year to avoid the fuss generated by ITV's hit series Popstars. It would seem that virtually the entire British nation has been glued to their TV sets to watch thousands of hopefuls be put through their paces by presenter 'Nasty' Nigel Lythgoe, before the eventual winners were groomed for stardom by swarms of stylists, singing coaches and video directors. Complete with glamorous image, tabloid rumour‑mongering and greengrocer's apostrophe, the ultimate product of this public manufacturing process was five‑piece band Hear'Say.

In this media feeding frenzy it would be easy to forget that the ultimate point of any pop band is to make music — and given the critical savaging that most 'manufactured' bands receive, it was a pleasant surprise to find that Hear'Say's debut single actually had some musical merit. An infectious, funky track recalling All Saints, Britney Spears and Oasis, 'Pure And Simple' is as strong a pop record as anything else the charts have seen this year, and has gone some way towards silencing the doubters who saw the whole project as nothing more than a cynical marketing exercise.

Jiant Steps

Recording at Zebra One is based around an Apple Mac running Emagic's Logic Audio.

'Pure And Simple' was co‑written and produced by Tim Hawes and Pete Kirtley, who together trade as production team Jiant. "We were out doing our regular meetings with record companies, and we knocked on Paul Adams' door at Polydor, who's the A&R guy you see on Popstars," explains Pete. "He'd mentioned a TV show, which we didn't really think too much about at the time. We'd heard it had done well in Australia, but we thought it had Big Brother syndrome. Anyway, we played him a few tracks, one of which was 'Pure And Simple', and he just flipped over it. We were in a position where we could say 'We feel this is one of our strongest songs, and we'd only consider it being used if it was going to be a single.' And he quickly realised its potential."

Life in the music business is never quite pure or simple, however, and there was one hurdle to be crossed before the song could be made available to Hear'Say. As the media swiftly discovered, 'Pure And Simple' had already been recorded by girl band Girl Thing, who were signed to a different record label. However, their version had only been released in the Far East, and in any case Girl Thing were not meeting with the success that had been hoped for. "It was always a single to us, that was our position, it had to be a single," insists Tim. "We never got that commitment from RCA, so when this opportunity came up we had to take it."

In The Beginning

Although 'Pure And Simple' is their first big hit, both Pete and Tim have been doing the rounds as jobbing songwriters for some years. As Pete explains, their choosing to work together represented a conscious bid to improve their production skills, so that they could offer a complete package to record companies: "As writers, we've worked on and off for about four years, but we only really joined forces about two years ago. And that's when we started to concentrate more on the production, taking our songs and really trying to put them in the marketplace. Our songwriting has always been quite strong, but sometimes our demos have let that down slightly, so we've worked on the production side for the last 18 months. The thing is, when you're writing, gone are the days when you could just bring a guitar and drum on a biscuit tin in an A&R meeting. You've got to have the bells and whistles to go with it. There's an artform in demos these days, you have to get them sounding like records. So although we haven't made all that many records, all our songs to me are records.

"'Pure And Simple' was the fastest song we ever wrote. The chorus just came out. The basic outline took 20 minutes. There's nothing unusual about that _‑‑ most of the greatest songs are quite spontaneous, aren't they? Tim and I did the music and wrote the lyrics and the melody of the chorus. We're not just track writers at all, we write top lines and we generally like to write the chorus."

"It started with an acoustic guitar and a vocal melody idea," explains Tim. "It was originally a 16 straight track, very different — it had the chorus, and it had a little country‑ish guitar sample running through it. And then we suddenly thought we'd try adding a bit of swing, and we got Alison Clarkson on board, who used to be Betty Boo. She came up with a funky kind of All Saints vibe to it. It's got the cool, funky verses, and then it opens out into quite a universal chorus."

Once Alison Clarkson had contributed her ideas, Pete and Tim recorded a demo of 'Pure And Simple' with Girl Thing at the microphone. "That original demo was slower," says Pete, "and we tweaked it again about a year later, and sped it up. The record company liked bits of the second demo, but they liked the feel of the first demo, so we kind of met in the middle. Sometimes when you make demos, it's scary, because you can make a demo that's got some magic to it, but when you go and make the record you lose all that magic. That's why it's always the nicest if when you write the song, you're writing the record, because you capture that magic straight away — you'll never get it back otherwise. The original demo was a tiny bit more R&B. It had a tight snare drum and a tight bass drum, and it was clean‑sounding. We added some more organic, hip‑hop elements."

The Programming

Tim and Pete's Rode Classic microphone.

As 'Pure And Simple' was over two years old by the time Hear'Say were formed, Pete and Tim decided to rerecord the entire song from the ground up. "We started again from scratch," says Pete. "We reprogrammed it from scratch, although we took a few influences from the old record, a couple of little keyboard parts which were nice, and the guitar licks. We effectively made the record in Tim's garage. It's a good environment, and we get a good sound out of it, even though we've got audio drive spill in the background, mobile phones, Tim farting, it all gets on the record."

The programming began with the song's basic groove, which was set up using a quantised drum pattern sequenced in Emagic Logic Audio on the Mac, triggering sounds from the duo's Akai S6000 sampler. "We use Logic to program all our bits and pieces, and we make our own quantise templates now," says Pete. "For me, there's a swing between 16D and 16E which hasn't been created, so we've made one. About eight ticks away from a 16D just swings a little bit better, for me."

"You can actually set up your own quantises to audio now, and make your own patterns," agrees Tim. "We've been getting into a bit of that at the moment, creating new quantises."

"You can take the quantise from a loop, that works quite well," adds Pete.

"We always basically use Akai samples," he continues. "The drums are just a collection of stuff — it's like collecting stamps, isn't it, you just pick 'em up over the years. We've both got a huge catalogue of drum sounds. Most of them are from sample CDs, and I was a drummer, so I made a few samples myself. We mainly compile several bass drums — there's never one definitive one from one sample CD, you'll take one that's got a great low end and put it together with one that's got a bit of a spike to it."

"It's the same with snares," adds Tim. "Let's be honest, most people are sourcing the same material, aren't they, which means that it's a question of trying to do something original with it using layering and filtering and effects."

The basic beats were augmented, at the record company's behest, with some lo‑fi rhythm elements to bring a hip‑hop feel to the fore. "There's noises and stuff in there, and we programmed little sub‑loops and put them through guitar effects," explains Tim. "It kind of distorts it and makes it sound like a loop."

"We also got a live DJ in, who lives down the road," says Pete. "He brought his decks in and just jammed for about two hours, scratching, and we took little moments of it, so the actual scratches on there are live. The record company were quite insistent that we made it sound as trashy as possible, which was nice. Hence all the noise, the radio sounds, and the needle crackle that's on there."

Further Developments

The main Zebra One gear rack (from top): Behringer Ultrafex effects, TC Electronic Finalizer mastering processor, Focusrite Platinum and Avalon mic preamps, Akai S6000 sampler, Roland JV2080 sound module and GP8 guitar processor, Emu Planet Phatt module, TL Audio stereo compressor, Drawmer DS201 gate, Lexicon MPX100 effects, MOTU MIDI Timepiece, Tascam DA30 DAT recorder.

One of the most distinctive sonic characteristics of 'Pure And Simple' is the squelchy, rasping bass sound that reinforces the beat in the verses. "That's a combination of a bass from the Studio Electronics SE1, and a patch from the Roland JV1080 called 'Booster Bips' which creates a different distorted sound depending on how hard you hit it," explains Pete. "So although it sounds like the bass is on a slight overdrive, it isn't, it's an SE1 and the Booster Bips."

"It comes up with these little random farting sounds," explains Tim. "And then around that we've got a live bass playing through a lot of the song. The tone of the SE1 actually sits perfectly with the rounded sound of a live bass."

"We EQ'd them both to sit," notes Pete. "It needed to be a bit tighter on the verses, but then it opens out a bit more on the choruses. We're trying to bring in as many live instruments as possible. We've got live bass and guitars on there, and although the strings aren't live, they're from the Emu Virtuoso."

"They were good enough to fool the engineer," laughs Tim. "He actually thought they were real!"

"Some of the string lines have got a lead line and a harmony, and sometimes we put a discordant note in, a semitone up or something," explains Pete. "It makes it discordant but it makes a very nice sound if you put it veryquietly — it's actually out of tune, but it creates a harmonic which sounds great. We also use a lot of bend‑downs and glides. The great thing about the Virtuoso is that it's all laid out for you — they've done all the work for you. It certainly gave us an extra 10 percent in the record.

"You get so much more out of live instruments. A blend of live instruments with modern sounds I think makes it less one‑dimensional. We could, and generally do play most of the instruments on the records and demos ourselves. But if you can pay to get the best, when you're producing, why not? Why not get the best on your record? Bring some new life to the table. I'm not precious about doing everything."

"Nor am I," insists Tim. "I play guitar, but I'd sooner get someone who can do a really good job at what we've written. I'm a basic guitar player, I play a few chords, but I'll always get someone else in to do the trimmings. Milton McDonald, who did the guitar session for us, used a Line 6 Pod. We were really impressed with that."

"It's easier to carry out and about than an amp," agrees Pete. "You can get more out of a guitar player with a Pod, because it's so little work — getting the sound you want is just a matter of turning a switch rather than getting another amp out, or another guitar. We can pay him for half a day's work and get another load of stuff recorded too."

"Also, when you use a really great guitar player like that, who works every day as a guitarist, you sort of go with them a bit, because they know their box of tricks, they know the right sounds for the right records," says Tim. "We listened to what he offered, and he came up with good sounds."

"We recorded it straight into the computer through the Mackie analogue desk and our MOTU 2408," explains Pete.

"Same with the bass," says Tim. "We actually took a feed out of his Trace Elliott amp. We used the brains of his Trace Elliott with EQ and stuff, and in fact the compression came from the amp as well. We also hired in a Dbx sub‑bass unit for the live bass, to bring out the lower frequencies."

"We kept it fairly bland, because we do a lot of treatment in the studio," remarks Pete.

The complement of programmed instruments was completed by a Fender Rhodes sample from the Akai S6000, a steel‑string guitar patch and an organ from the Roland JV1080, and some sound effects from a Roland Juno 60 synth. "The organ was off the JV '60s card, which I quite like. It's got some good organs on there — some of them are really cheesy, and there are a couple of real organic Deep Purple‑type vibes," explains Tim.

"We also used the Lexicon PCM91 for a chorusey effect on a lot of the instruments, including the organ — it gives it a really wide sort of swelly sound," says Pete.

The Moment Of Truth

The bulk of 'Pure And Simple' was recorded above in Tim Hawes' garage, also known as Zebra One recording studio.

With the backing track complete, it was time to find out whether the rigorous auditioning process had actually produced a band with any vocal talent. Tim's garage was deemed too small for a five‑piece band and too unglamorous for the television cameras, so the producers decamped to London's Strongroom studios to record the band's vocals with engineer Tim 'Spag' Speight.

"We took a lot of vocals when we made the record. That's how we work, we take everything — if you fart in the room, we'll have it and comp it later," laughs Pete. "But there wasn't a lot of tuning needed, really. They'd learnt the parts and they were quite professional. We'd worked all the harmony parts out before they came in, just in case they couldn't sing. We got them in and out in about four hours, and they worked very hard and concentrated, and two of them had recalls on lead vocals, but it was pretty good. Noel, who's one of the guys, didn't think he'd get a verse, but he's got quite a high voice, and it worked out really well. I personally like the consistency of one voice. But they didn't do a bad job, the blend's OK, and the tones are quite close, so it didn't jump out too much when the next person comes in."

"Danny pulled off a great middle eight, too," remarks Tim. "In its previous format it was all girls singing, so it brought a new dimension to it with the male‑female thing going on. Because of the nature of the lyric it actually ties in quite well. We used a Neumann U47 for the vocals. It's what the engineer ordered in, because it's his personal favourite. It seems to do the job. We use a little Rode Classic back at our studio, which is quite good, with an Avalon preamp."

"When we'd done the vocals, we went into Mayfair Studios, dumped all the MIDI onto RADAR, threw the lead vocals into Pro Tools for slight fine‑tuning, put it back on to RADAR and mixed it on the SSL at Mayfair," says Pete. "The backing vocals didn't need to go into Pro Tools, because they didn't need any work, basically. The lead vocals we did have to dump into Pro Tools. We had a guy called Barney Chase do our comping for us, because he's really quick and we were trying to finish other things. We both love comping, though — you see all this information, the good bits and the bad bits, and you can get the ultimate take. Spag had worked on 'Pure And Simple' with us before. He's a nice lad, does a lot of work for PWL. He's good. We used Spag because we don't usually use an SSL desk ourselves, so it would have taken us longer."

"Although we twiddle knobs a bit, we're not, strictly speaking, engineers, so just by that fact we're not going to get the absolute best out of that sound material, which is why you bring someone else in just to get that little bit extra," says Tim. "We like to surround ourselves with people who do do things exceptionally well. That's part of that extra 20 percent that goes between a demo and a record, really."

Mission Accomplished

With the extraordinary publicity generated by the TV series, not to mention radio airplay that other boy and girl bands would give their eye teeth for, it was inevitable that 'Pure And Simple' would claim a high chart placing on its March release. However, it faced stiff competition from Shaggy's 'It Wasn't Me' and Westlife's never‑mind‑the‑quality‑feel‑the‑good‑cause cover of Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl', so a debut number one was by no means a foregone conclusion. In the event, the record's popularity was demonstrated by an unstoppable sales rush which saw more than half a million copies sold in the first week, and 'Pure And Simple' duly claimed the top spot, becoming the third fastest‑selling debut single since records began.

As co‑writers and producers, and with other contributions to Hear'Say's debut album in the bag, Pete and Tim stand to do pretty well out of 'Pure And Simple', but they're determined to keep their feet on the ground. "To be honest, this is our first major release in this country," admits Pete. "We're like new kids on the block really, in production, and writing as well. This is our first single to be released in the UK."

"The possibilities are exciting, but we're trying to remain quite calm about that," insists Tim. "Once you start working the maths out about these things, it's not that mind‑boggling really. What it does do is give us a little bit of a platform, to be able to move on from here and get some better gigs in.&quot

"We're just tabloid trash now!" laughs Pete. "The bottom line is that we are pop writers and pop producers. We're not ashamed of it, I'm not scared of pop, I enjoy listening to it. I'm sure in the world of credibility we'll get slated, but I'm not in it for cred at all. I make pop music, and I'm not scared of doing something because it's poppy. But what we are going to do next year is revive guitar solos... That's our mission in pop!"