Ricky Warwick is a man who needs no introduction.
From his early days with The Almighty through Thin Lizzy, Black Star Riders and his solo projects, Warwick has redefined the fave and voice of hard rock music.
His achievements are legendary and unlikely to be surpassed, all of which are on display with his latest solo album When Life Was Hard And Fast, which is out now.
Warwick joined HEAVY for a chat last week about the album, and shed some light on the difference between his favoured method of recording an album ‘live’ and recording it using current modern technology.
“What you tend to do with the band,” he explained, “is you set everything up in the studio, mic everything up, play together as a band and then we will keep the drums and usually the bass – whatever we like – from the take, but the energy and the attitude is all four of us as if we were playing that song live or in a rehearsal space. We’re putting that down, which is basically the meat and potatoes of the thing, and then Keith and I would take it away and add the guitar and vocals later. Now you can do everything digitally – you don’t need a band, you can do everything on a computer and all that – but no matter how good technology gets it’s never gonna recreate soul and that’s what you’re getting. You’re capturing a moment; you’re capturing an emotion; you’re capturing people’s feelings and people’s attitude; people’s soul that they’re putting into playing on the instruments that they play. You can never recreate that with technology in my opinion. For me, it’s old school. It’s about putting the essence of the whole thing down as live as possible and building on it from there.”
In the full interview, Ricky runs us through the album in greater detail, writing with his producer Keith Nelson, the sound of the album, his duet with his daughter, closing out the album with “You’re My Rock and Roll” and the poignancy of that statement, defines the spirit of rock and roll according to himself, what he gets individually from each project he has, joining Black Star Riders and more.
Watch “When Life Was Hard And Fast” below:
