LinkExchange Member
Transcript from
WLSW radio interviews
February-July, 1995
FEBRUARY 18
Intro: �Martin Page has finally released his debut album, The House of Stone and Light, and his first single, In the House of Stone and Light is our #___ track. �You may not know Martin Page's name, but you probably know his work. �He's been writing songs for other artists for years. �We Built This City for Starship, These Dreams for Heart, and King of Wishful Thinking for Go West, to name just a few. �Now that he's taking the spotlight himself, Page says it was important to do it right.
Page: �"I felt like this was going to be my solo book. �And the main thing was to be honest, and to be real. �And I've had success in other areas before this, so this album, to me, wasn't just like doing what I usually did, writing for other people. �I felt very, it felt very important to me to be incredibly, to strip my skin and to be very, very honest.
FEBRUARY 25
Intro: �As the cliche goes, you never get a chance to make a first impression. �So when Martin Page recorded his debut album...he was determined to do it right.
Page: �"I've waited a long time to do this record, so it was very important to give the sense that I wasn't holding anything back. �There was gonna be no mystery. �The mistakes were left on the record in the sense that the demos made it all the way through. �The vocals were very much, they were the demo vocals that were started off very early on. �So I feel, my favorite work by other artists has always been their most emotional work. �And when they've basically become very human. �And very personable. �And I think on this record, it was important for me to do that."
MARCH 4
Intro: �In the House of Stone and Light...was recorded, along with the rest of his album, at Martin Page's house, in his garage. �This may sound strange to you, but Page says he had a very good reason.
Page: �"This was done over a period of two years, so I, two years ago, got in the garage of the house I bought. �I bought this house, really, for the garage. �And I really wanted, I knew if I was gonna make this record, that I needed to be on my own, engineer it myself, make a lot of mistakes. �The rural energy of this had to be done, not in the clinical setting of a studio. �I wanted the creativity to come to me, instead of me going to a studio and hoping the creativity came there."
MARCH 11
Intro: �...Page recorded and produced the entire album in his own garage, which he says gave him much more freedom than a studio would have.
Page: �"If I could sit for a long time, experimenting, without incurring huge costs, it made a lot of sense to me. �And there's nothing like doing those vocals in a situation where you feel very relaxed. �Where your real thoughts are taking place. �And so, I worked on Robbie Robertson's last two solo records, and he'd worked very much in that way. �So that inspired me to think this is going to be the kind of color, and the kind of way I want to work. �So the garage is really the studio. �That's the House of Stone and Light, actually."
MARCH 18
Intro: �...In the House of Stone and Light was recorded at Page's home studio, in his garage. �It was an experience he says was so great, he never wanted it to end.
Page: �"Once I'd worked in the garage for a year, I didn't want to come out, it seemed to me. �We went out to get the drums, to get the ambiance of the live players, but the demos, everything, was done in the small space at home."
MARCH 25
Intro: �On Martin Page's track, In the House of Stone and Light, lead guitar is played by the legendary Robbie Robertson. �It's no surprise to find him on this album, though. �After all, says Page, the two of them have known each other for quite some time.
Page: �"I was put forward to work with Robbie on his first solo record by his A & R man, Gary Girth. �I had no idea who Robbie was. �And I don't think he had an idea of who I was. �I thought I was going to go into a country and western record or something. �I bought a hat and some boots, but it was not needed at all. �Thank God."
APRIL 1
Intro: �For years, Martin Page has worked as a songwriter and a producer. �That's how he met legendary musician Robbie Robertson.. �So when he needed a guitarist to play on...In the House of Stone and Light, Page figured it couldn't hurt to ask a favor of a friend.
Page: �"He always owed me a favor, and I said, 'Okay, when I do my solo record, you've gotta play guitar.' �And lo and behold, I called him up one day and played The House of Stone and Light, the title track, and he did it. �Which, I'm thrilled. �He played some great guitar."
APRIL 8
Intro: �One of the reasons people love Martin Page's...In the House of Stone and Light is because it's not your typical pop song. �That's because Page isn't influenced by your typical music.
Page: �"My influences, I love traditional music, I love folk, I love hymnal music. �And I distinctly tried to sit down and write very simplistic earth songs. �Where I wasn't gonna be searching for chords which were, had ninths and elevenths or whatever, I wanted to write songs that reflected, almost it could be a hymn. �They were very traditional. �Simple songs are the hardest to write."
APRIL 15
Intro: �When Martin Page wrote...In the House of Stone and Light, along with the rest of his album, he says he was trying to capture the simplistically long lasting qualities he's admired in songs like Knocking on Heaven's Door; �Amazing Grace; �Abraham, Martin, and John, and Many Rivers to Cross. �But there was one other quality he wanted in his music as well.
Page: �"I'm also an avid history fan. �So I love the period of the medieval and those times when being blue or melancholy was a good thing. �You could go to a room to be sad, or find your soul. �So I really wanted to feel that I was writing songs that were coming from, not from a fashionable sense of now, but were coming from a very roots sense."
APRIL 22
Intro: �Some artists see writing songs like painting a picture, adding the details stroke by stroke. �Others see it like making a movie, putting all the elements together at once and then using the best takes. �Martin Page...has his own analogy.
Page: �"I always see writing songs like creating a body. �A human body that I'd see the legs as being the bass and the drums and being the skeleton, and then you'd see the chest as being the chords and the paths, and then I'd see the eyes and the head as the melody. �I was, like, creating a Frankenstein every time I wrote a song."
APRIL 29
Intro: �Sometimes, when an artist writes a song, he's thinking about the one he loves, or the one he no longer loves, or about society or human nature. �But not Martin Page. �When he writes a song..., he's got something else on his mind.
Page: �"I think that when I'm writing my songs, which don't come from a technical place, I'm thinking of my history. �I'm thinking of where I came from. �I'm thinking of the fields, I'm thinking of my grandmother, I'm thinking of the buildings, I'm thinking of the tough times and the happy times. �That's all the experiences you bring in."
MAY 6
Intro: �...On the album, Martin Page wrote all the songs, produced every track, and recorded the whole thing in his garage. �He says the reason he took on so much responsibility was because it was the best way for him to maintain complete control.
Page: �"I wanted it to be rough. �I wanted the engineering to be done by me, because I never knew when the emotions were gonna come. �So I took a lot of it on my own to see what was gutterally gonna come out."
MAY 13
Intro: �Most of the time, pop songs are inspired by other pop songs. �An artist grows up listening to the Beatles, for example, so his album has a Beatles sound. �But not Martin Page. �His hit, In the House of Stone and Light is inspired by a more unusual source.
Page: �"I definitely was searching for songs that had a traditional sense to them. �In the middle of In the House of Stone and Light, it's almost like folk. �It's almost like a Gaelic chant. �And I, I'm a great fan of that music. �And I think it's a very soulful music, and a soulful time. �And I think we're seeing it now, people reflecting on the album by the monks. �People are looking for that silence, stillness, and spirtual sense in the music. �And it moved me, and I wanted to write songs which were simplistically that powerful."
MAY 20
Intro: �...Page says one of the reasons the album is so good is because he used only the cream of the crop.
Page: �"When I sat down to write the solo album, what took a long time was really, like, I did a year of what I called 'The Spirit Demo Album,' where I wrote about twenty to thirty songs, trying to find out what I was worth. �Was this me? �Was this real? �Was this honest? �What I was putting out in front of the people. �And over a period of that year, ten out of the thirty songs started to have the strength and foundation to go the distance."
MAY 27
Intro: �When Martin Page created his album...he says he wanted to create a mood from the first song...all the way to the end.
Page: �"It was very important to me that the record actually tasted, smelt, and felt very much like one object. �Like if you were going to hear The House of Stone and Light, and you go straight through to the final song, The Door, you felt like you were in a place, in a book, in a room, in a building--all felt the same."
JUNE 3
Intro: �Martin Page wrote over 30 songs for his debut album...but only ten of them made the cut... �Page says the main reason he chose the ones he did was because he wanted the album to have a certain flow.
Page: �"It took a lot of time to feel if these songs were gonna, that they would all have the same color. �If you met me when I play live, you'll feel like, 'I know this person, and there's no illusion.'"
JUNE 10
Intro: �When Martin Page writes a song...he doesn't do it in the usual way. �He writes the same way Phil Collins does: �phonetically.
Page: �"I used phonetic vocals. �I would play the chords and I would sing. �Just "nadebhunedababababa." �Just do noises, and traditional noises. �Whatever that came into the room. �That's the reason why you have to do it on your own in the garage. �'Cause if you do that in the studio, they'd say, 'Quick, get him to the asylum. �He's gone again.' �So, here's this man in the garage going, 'Aheeehe' for hours. �But out of that came a formation of a melody which I thought was very spiritual."
JUNE 17
Intro: �...In the House of Stone and Light from Martin Page, who says his debut album evolved slowly.
Page: �"I always like to feel that the most important musician on this record was time. �Because it took time to settle into the air. �The next hour I listened to it, it said something else. �And slowly the songs formed themselves."
JUNE 24
Intro: �Before recording his debut album...Martin Page was a songwriter for other artists...but he was never completely happy with the way they came out. �He says that was one of the main reasons he decided to make his own album.
Page: �"After all the years of doing demos and then other people recording the songs, losing possibly what I think is the air, the emotional content. �And with technology so advanced, you can polish songs until they gleam too much. �So keeping the spirit of the first way I did the songs was very important."
JULY 1
Intro: �Martin Page has been one of the most successful songwriter/producers of the last decade. �But last year, he decided to take the plunge and record his own album... �Page describes what it was that pushed him into that decision.
Page: �"I felt like I was ready to do it. �I didn't think, I knew that I was, my songs were coming to a point where I'd had the success. �We'd had chart success. �I knew what it was to do the other things. �But I didn't think my true, the true emotions of my writing had really been seen. �So it was a labor of love, really."
JULY 8
Intro: �For years, Martin Page made quite a good living writing songs for other artists. �It wasn't until recently...that he took the spotlight for himself. �But he says building a career that way was never the game plan.
Page: �"I'd like to make a point, really, that I came here as an artist. �I was never a songwriter. �And the songwriting thing came about from just being in this town, and people wanted to work with myself and my partner, also as producers."
JULY 15
Intro: �In the House of Stone and Light is...hardly his first hit single. �He's written and produced for many superstars over the years, including Heart, Starship, and Robbie Robertson. �Page says working with such talent helped him grow as an artist.
Page: �"I was very lucky. �Incredibly lucky. �My enthusiasm and my naivety as a fan just allowed me to get with people that wanted to work hard, and I was learning. �I was like a sponge. �I would work with these people and take it in. �I was like a fly on the wall, and here I was living my dream."
JULY 22
Intro: �Years before he entered the...countdown with his...debut single...Martin Page was writing and producing hits for other artists. �He says those artists all had the same advice for him, it just took him a while to take it.
Page: �"Always, I'd been encouraged by the artists that I worked with. �When they heard my demos of what I would give to them with me singing, with me demonstrating the tape, they'd say, 'You know, why aren't you doing this yourself?' �And particularly Robbie Robertson. �When I brought him 'Fallen Angel' and 'Hell's Half Acre,' he said, 'There's two people I think should make solo records: �Daniel Lemoire and yourself. �You should get this out.'"
Transcripts provided by Margaret Brosey.�����