Paul: The kind of thing I want to do is get towards your ideas of --well, to some extent, what producing is.

Felix: You mean, for me?

Paul: Yeah. I'll make it more specific; it's like, there's a whole way of making music that's not simple for people to relate to, they know what somebody does when they put their fingers on the guitar, but producing is just a lot more complicated. I think the thing to start on is how you found yourself producing, how that thing happened..

Felix: I was a studio musician for a while; from like '63 on. And then about a year and a half ago, Herb Gart, manager of the Youngbloods, called me up and said, "How would you like to produce the Youngbloods?" That made me chuckle, 'cause I didn't know anything about it, what to do or anything --I had no preconceived notions as to what production was. And at that time I had just quit Ian and Sylvia and Max Moran and a group called the Original Rag Quartet that was in simultaneously. So I had nothing to do. Or I hadn't formulated a plan --I was just hanging around, playing. So I said yeah, it sounds like a good idea. I went and I did it, and we made the first Youngbloods album. That was a little bit different than what's been going on now; because obviously I hadn't developed any style whatsoever. The object at that point was just to get the album done. It took a long time; and, I hear, twenty-eight or twenty-nine thousand dollars...it was unbelievable.

So what turned out for, for me, besides an album which I still dig --and commercially, for their sake and for Herb's sake and RCA's sake, a hit single --I learned a lot, but not about what I was. Or where I was going. That was the whole thing. I had no idea. Then after that was over I really wasn't doing anything again until my friend Bud Praeger came along. Somebody from Columbia, in fact, sent him down. Just as a short version of the story, about twenty minutes later we were partners. Then the next thing was that he told me to go over and hang out at Atlantic, 'cause he thought that that was where I was going to find a home where my methods would be understood. And still I didn't really have any methods, I still wasn't sure what it was all about. I think it began to come together with Hamilton Camp, on the Here's To You album, where I had two weeks to do a whole album, and I found myself like putting down basic tracks with studio musicians, and then putting Hamilton on, and then putting Felix on, in one form or another: strings, brass, depending on what I heard. And I always knew that that was what I wanted to do, but in a lot of cases I was stopped, do you know what I mean? Where my first instincts were to do that--it always managed to put somebody up tight. Which means in retrospect that I was working with the wrong people.

And where it really got to is on this next Cream album; now I know what I dig to do, and how I like to go about it, as a producer. Which is like not spending a whole lot of time with the electronics, the equipment, but with the music. That's why the engineer is so important to me. Like Tommy Dowd --he's invaluable. Because I don't have to worry about him, he's got it covered. At any rate with Cream, we agreed, without even really talking about it, how they should be recorded. It was an untalked-about agreement; he heard the band the same way I heard the band. It's a natural sound is what it really is. Basically I like to get totally involved with the music, to the point where I'm involved in the band. When I work with Cream, for the two or three weeks that I work with Cream I totally join them, as a musician. I know this is contrary to a lot of the, not the stock methods but the very important methods of recording self-contained bands. I just feel that you should go after the record, the experience, as a record in both making it and listening to it that's right for that moment, regardless of what you draw upon.

Paul: This new album...what's it called?

Felix: Wheels of Fire.

Paul: At the point that you came into the album, as it were, what already existed? What did they have in their heads?

Felix: Nothin'. No preconceived notions. It was just, time to do a new one, time to get into something. And I flew over to England..."Anyone For Tennis" happened pretty much like it exists, in Jack's living room in London. I was playing bass, and Jack wa splaying drums with Ginger, Ginger was playing these big giant maraccas and Eric was playing guitar and singing. The change that we made is when we got to the studio Jack played bass and I played viola lines over the finished record and the occharina and cello duet that Jack and I did was something that we had planned, just as a thing we wanted to do, we wanted to try. And most of the rest of the tunes, except for the blues tunes, that everybody knows and they know, they were approached right in the studio from beginning to end --like "Tales of Brave Ulysses" from Disraeli Gears, I mean Eric had the words written on a piece of paper, and what I would consider an excellent idea of the tune and the track roughed out, and everything got built from that point on. In fact, we didn't even have a wah-wah pedal in the studio when we started doing it. That afternoon, we went out and bought one, over at Manny's, and then decided well, let's try it there.

So it all happens from moment to moment; rather than finish records we kind of abandon them, as far as piling things on top is concerned. We all know when to stop, somehow--to suit each other, at any rate. So it's never a fight, as to what' gonna get done, it's always pretty much mutual.

Paul: Does a song get done until it sounds right, or does a thing get laid down and then it's changed until it's what you want it to be?

Felix: Both ways, depending on the example. I really like to put down a basic track that knocks everybody out, and go from there. And go after the record from that point. Especially when it's a tune that one guy in the band wrote and the rest of the cats in the room have never heard because he's never played it for them. So you look to that cat for the feeling of the track. Like one on the last album, we did a basic track that was incredible, it was really beautiful. The next day, when we played it back, everybody thought it was an unbelievable track, but Ginger said, "Wait a minute, man, it's too fast for the tune." So in that case you have to go back into the studio and do it over again. To that degree.

Paul: It's an interesting interaction, because Cream is obviously a group of musicians, as opposed to composers. I mean people who are really into their instruments.

Felix: The only one who's into composition per se is Jack, as what I would call a composer, someone who would score things as he hears them. Jack's deeply into that. I think the first example of it in some total form is found on the next album; he wrote this thing called "As You Said." To me it's totally original. It's scored for two acoustic guitars, two cellos, voice and just high-hat. And it's Jack, except for the high-hat, playing both acoustic guitars, both cellos, and the vocal. So I know he's into composition, 'cause I know what his background is, his background is very much like mine. I mean he's trained, in the elements and in the literature. In other words, he's not a rok 'n' roll musician; he's just a musician, generically. His tastes and his understanding are very catholic.

But, I interrupted you, right in the middle of going someplace...

Paul: No, that's...that's the sort of thing I wanted to find out. It's hard to find exact words, but putting the musician on the one hand and the composer on the other, I was thinking in terms of the musician who finds out what he's doing from his instrument, you know he gets into it and something starts happening, and...

Felix: Yeah, even the composer finds that in this day and age. Things that you would think about, a lot of the time are things that've already been thought of, you know, but it's that moment in playing when you stumble on something that you know is something you've never heard before. Which most people call a mistake. But I love 'em.

Paul: It's pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Felix: I think that's where at least most of the new music comes from, mistakes in one area or another.

Paul: A process of discovery.

Felix: If you're in a key, an established key used by all the music in western civilization in eight or nine hundred years, it seems to me that that's just about the uniqueness of the relationship..."

Paul: Well just a further thing on that same trip, that you're producing, as you say, also very much from a musician's standpoint. That's a subtle thing, I'm not sure if I can describe it, but...

Felix: You mean like what I do? What I do is more from the point of view of records, a compositional approachk in other words when the record's finished, and it's got the basic track and the voice on it, that's when I feel that you have to reach for that extra bit of like composition, of making the record go from beginning to end, with a delineated form, a visual form as well as...That's where I've come from folk, you know, after the training, being in the folk thing and getting those roots together, and then superimposing another thing on it. I really...it's so hard to talk about, for me; I just know how I approach finishing a record, or how I approach putting what I feel onto a record...I couldn't produce a band, I don't think I could produce a band that had all the basic tracks worked out, everything worked out, and all the string parts written if they wanted strings, and all the brass--'cause it wouldn't be any fun for me. It wouldn't leave me anything to do. Then I'd just do what a lot of te guys at the companies do: I'd fill out the forms and make sure that everything was on the right track that it was supposed to go on and I'd split and I'd go home and I'd say like okay man, I made another album. But that's not where...every album, every album that comes out it's like mine, as an artist besides a producer, I'm involved, there's always something on that record that's something I gotta say too, musically.

Paul: Are you thinking of doing an album yourself at some point?.

Felix: Yeah, eventually. I'd like to. I don't know how or what; I know I have some things written, but they're totally compositional, no words, just like some of them are for wind octet, brass ensembles, small orchestra...I've just gotten fascinated by writing some charts like 1927 and 1928 records, Bix Beiderbecke things and things like that have really gotten to me. And I'd like to try something for an ensemble like that, and see what I can impose upon that set-up of instruments, from today..

Paul: You think in terms of addition?.

Felix: Uh, yeah, and also a lot in subtraction, when you're talking about a basic track that a band comes in with, so to speak. That, a lot of the time, is a process of subtraction. Not so much with Cream, but like with the Kensington Market, a lot of times something'll be done with all five guys playing and the basic track may wind up just three of them. And either maybe overdubbing one of the other ones or incorporating one of the other ones into something else; a color. You know, there's two things and they're both playing the back beat, one of 'em's a snare and one of 'em's a chick guitar, I think that's silly, myself. It seems like if one is recorded well, that's all that's really needed, and you have room for something else. But that's just an example. Somebody might say, "I don't know about that, because sometimes it might be groovy to have two things like that going," and it's true. So it's just specific, it has to do with just that moment. That's why it's so hard for me to really talk about it and to keep it together 'cause I got no music to work with..

Paul: It comes completely from the ears..

Felix: Yeah. I'd know what to do if we were listening to one now, and I heard something that I thought could work better in another instrument or something like that. And that's...I hope that's the reason why the people who work with me...well I know it is, I mean that's the reason why. Like the Kensington Market. When they came down here originally, we knew it was going to be like six cats in the studio, making records. I wasn't going to be in the booth all the time; sometimes when I don't know how to explain something, the best thing I can do is play it. And then either transfer it to a guy in the band who really understands it or play it myself. Or any kind of exchange in the studio with the musicians who are there. That's the kind of involvement I get..

So I don't think it's just a process of addition. It's like addition, subtraction, everything there is. A lot of orchestration comes into it too, changes of texture which can be done with certain instruments effectively and not so with others. There's one on the next Cream album that's really breathtaking--I even forget the tune it's in, but Cream is going like a house afire, and all of a sudden there's this cello and viola duet that comes over them. The meter changes to three-four--well, it's a three-four over four-four implied--and it's a complete change of texture, beautiful. That probably came out of Jack's head, 'cause it was his tune; but whatever it was, it was so right, it was obviously so right, it just made it big and beautiful..

Paul: Texture...Do you find youself getting more and more into sound, I mean not even music but the way something sounds?.

Felix: Sure, that's incredible. That just happens a lot of the time, suddenly you hit something that seems exciting and you say okay..

Paul: With Cream, in the studio, how difficult is the process of getting people comfortable, to the point where the music can just completely flow?.

Felix: It just happens, it's not like...I know what you mean, and I find myself with them totally incapable of even attempting to try, it's got to be there. And sometimes it happens four hours after we walk into the studio, sometimes two hours after we walk into the studio. It just depends on where they're at. The last day of this album I just had to shove a lot. I don't think that was terribly pleasant for anyone, but it had to be done, that's all there was to it. We pushed, everybody pushed and we got it done. I couldn't push them if they didn't want to be pushed. They're too strong, and that certainly is not my gig. Paul: It seems to me that three is one of the toughest numbers in the world to integrate..

Felix: It's pretty tough. But it seems to work, we get a sort of a rhythm going and it carries us for a week. And then things begin to bog down. I think all of those guys are...it seems to me that they don't dig to sit still very long. Neither do I, I don't blame them..

Paul: Well none of them have; their whole careers....

Felix: Yeah, it's historically borne out. That's really a trait of theirs, to keep moving..

Paul: What do you think they'll grow into?.

Felix: I can only tell you what I see them growing into; like I see Jack growing into a bonafide, dynamite composer of such scope that I can only eagerly wait to hear what he's gonna do. Eric's my favorite guitarist; I think he's probably still got that drive to play blues. Probably what he'll do is just play blues, eventually, you know, go back. And Ginger...he's such a phenomenal drummer that half the time I don't believe it. And I don't know what he's going to grow into...a big green monster. But where they go has a lot to do with what they run into, between tomorrow and the next day..

Paul: You think things are going to loosen up in the field in general, things are going to allow musicians to get together more?.

Felix: I hope so. 'Cause it's really been a drag, actually. I remember when everybody was hanging out, down there (points into theVillage); you could run around with your bass, your guitar, you could play with four cats a night. Get together and play at the Au Go Go, play at the Night Owl--for me I used to go to the Feenjon, and play with the mideastern cats. It was great. And there's nothing like that. There's really no place to go and hang out and play..

Are you getting anything out of me? 'Cause I get that weird feeling that I'm not really saying anything about anything..

Paul: I might be....

Felix: Maybe I'm not supposed to be saying anything..

Paul: I don't know. What becomes important is like...Again, as I said, people don't have any idea of what a producer is. Even most producers aren't into a very specific idea of what a producer is, it's a great range of things..

Felix: Yeah, I was just gonna say, I don't have the faintest idea of what a producer is. I mean I know what they are in the stock sense of the word, you know...I remember when I went out to work with Dino Valente. Columbia sent this girl down to the studio to teach me how to fill out all the forms. I wound up just telling her to please get the hell out of the > studio and don't come back with the papers, 'cause that's not where it is. For me. So when a big machine like that has a girl meet you, to do just that specific thing, like for their records--I know it's important, but I can't handle it. To me it sounds stupid, it feels stupid, because why not just go along on the tape until you get the track you want and then head-and-tail leader it? And just put on the outside of the box, "good take is head-and-tail-leadered"? Instead of sitting there every take...'cause I don't like to splice, see, basic track, so there's no reason, I don't see any reason for it, but this is what a producer does, in the stock sense of the word. That's his gig, to take care of all of the business and maybe get the idea for a combination of the artist and the song, do you know what I mean, in the show business definition of producer, a cat that sits at home and gets an idea that oh, Joney what's her name would really be a groove singing "Yummy, Yummy," let's see if we can throw that together and get Gary Sherman to arrange it--.

Paul: A & R..

Felix: Yeah, artists & repertoire, that's right, and he gets on the phone and calls Gary Sherman and Gary Sherman says "Sure," this is on a Tuesday, he says "Sure, I'll write you four charts by Thursday." And that's not a knock on Gary, 'cause I think Gary's a super-talented cat; I just think that his efforts aesthetically could be more well-directed. As most of the entire business could, right? I mean they're just getting them out there, all the cute little tunes, with the cute little arrangements. I have no respect for that. I respect craftsmanship..

But I'm already off the subject of what is a producer?, 'cause I don't know what a producer is, in my sense. Somebody else could probably like, look at me better, and say what I do, 'cause I don't think about it while I'm doing it; and retrospectively I forget how something came to be, it's just like on to the next record, see what happens there, what has to be done. So I don't really know. I just know that I actively take part in the music. And there are standards that I have musically that I refuse to go below. I have to be satisfied with what's there. And I would never hire an arranger. Mostly, when a producer wants a record with a certain sound, he calls an arranger and they discuss it. And he gets it together from a musical point of view, and the producer has produced by contracting the correct arranger for that particular piece of music, or that singer. In my case, I do it myself, because I like the way I arrange. It satisfies me. So that right there is a part of my method of production..

Now all of this, you have to remember, is not specifically with Cream; because that's not where it's at with them. I add to and make suggestions as far as arranging is concerned. Like picking instruments and what we're gonna use, we discuss things like that, but--like for Hamilton Camp, they're my arrangements. And there's this new album on Atlantic, for a group called Bo Grumpus, where I get into a lot of what I could call my own things, but worked out with the guys. It knock the guys out too, otherwise it's no fun. There's a lot of examples of that on that album..

On the Kensington Market, they're a self-contained group. Most of te stuff they did totally by themselves. There's one tune on there where Keith, who's the lead singer, and the writer, played guitar and sang and I played bass with him. This is with their bass player right in the studio, working with me. This is so important, like a free exchange among all the people that are there. The reason why that happened is, I was going to write a full orchestral chart over this, and who better to play the bass on it than the arranger? Since bass is the fulcrum upon which everything else musically is built. The bass calls the shots. It calls the inversion of any particular change; and when it happens that you're talking about two or three chords in a row, it usually directs the voicing, how inside voices are gonna move. So Alex is like an intelligent human being, an intelligent musician, who understood this immediately, and because he dug the idea of having a tune on the album fully orchestrated, he said to me, "Well man, you've got to play the bass on the tune, that only makes sense, doesn't it?" And I said, "Yeah. Groovy." No uptightness..

Paul: Do you think you might find yourself arranging on somebody else's session?.

Felix: That's one of the things that got me into production. Doing an arrangement for an artist and then having somebody else record it, and somebody else mix it...I was never satisfied. Because part of arranging, to me--I don't know how to arrange like the Gary Shermans and the people who have that facility for writing. I think of it differently, I think mainly for recording, not for live orchestras or anything like that. And how could I possibly write an arrangement for recording when I'm sitting down here with my manuscript paper at the piano or something, working it out for a record, hearing the finished product in my head and arranging it for another producer, who can't possibly know what I'm looking for? So I quit that. There are people I'd love to arrange for, but I wouldn't sleep for weeks after the thing was done, I know it. It's happened to me before..

Mixing to me is a giant, giant part of making records. I've heard a lot of cats in the studio say, "Well, not too heavy with that bass sound, but don't worry about it, we'll fix it in the mix." Man, that's not it at all. I see a record totally as an illusion. And if you don't have, basically you don't have the sound in the studio that you're looking for, you're never gonna get it with equalizers and all that funny stuff. You can get more, after you have the basic thing right, that you have in your head, then you can fine tuen with equalizers and with compressors and limiters and things like that. That's what to me, what takes such pains is the fine tuning of the thing, placement and stereo and things like that. Where echo return is going to appear from. Not gimmicks, so that the cat says, "Oh man, what was that weird thing?" That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about setting up a listening situation for a person, and trying to fulfill that particular moment, visually. As an ilusion. 'Cause that's all it is, when you've got earphones on and you're listening to music, that's all some freaky kind of illusion, and it depends on your physical state more than anything just howmuch you're going to get in tune with it. To be able to feel that it's happening there, so that not all of a sudden does the guitar shoot out and feel unpleasant..

Paul: You get so you're riding it..

Felix: And nothing jars you; it feels comfortable the whole way through, it feels really comfortable.