Swedish-born Martin Terefe is a Grammy-winning producer, musician and songwriter who has worked with a wide range of artists, including KT Tunstall, Christina Aguilera, Cat Stevens, Jason Mraz, James Morrison, Train, A-ha, Mary J. Blige, Ron Sexsmith and Martha Wainwright. He is also the owner of Eastcote and Kensaltown Studios, in West London.
In this latest interview as part of The Starscream Sessions series, Sean Hannam speaks to Martin about audio quality, his music listening habits past and present, and his latest project, independent record label Eastcote Recordings.
When you’re making a record, how much do you think about where people will hear it – on phones, earbuds, smart speakers or hi-fi systems? Does that affect how you record, mix and master?
Martin Terefe: That’s a good question. I think in the early days of MP3, there was a time when we used to think, ‘Oh my God – we’re doing all this work and it’s going to end up as an MP3…’ But then I started getting used to MP3 and liking it – I thought it sounded quite punky – harder than it sounded in the studio. I guess MP3 is now a luxury format.
For me, the studio is about creating an environment where people make good music. I think it’s just us, in the studio, and a few audiophiles, or some people that are interested in a particular niche, that will notice things. But I feel like the general way people notice music is just like, ‘Oh, I like that melody’, or ‘I like those words’ – it’s very small things. I think it was Todd Rundgren who said that when people listen to something, if they’re not a musician or a producer, they’re just going to immediately think whatever they’re hearing is exactly what it was meant to sound like.
So, it doesn’t frustrate you when you’ve made a record and then you hear it being played on a fist-sized speaker?
No – I think it’s great it’s being played on any speaker. You can sometimes feel that it’s a pity that [some] young people won’t be able to hear music on a proper system, but, on the other hand, they all have fancy headphones… and they will listen mainly on headphones, which is probably a good way to listen to music.
How do you listen when you do playbacks of the music you’ve worked on? Is it on headphones or do you do the ‘car test?’
When I’m doing a mix, I sometimes put on my AirPods and then I go for a walk. I also use ProAc speakers – I have them in all my studios, and I’ve used them for 25 years. That’s how I reference how I want something to sound. My ‘car test’ is AirPods – that’s probably the most common way people listen to music. Sure. I’d like to say that I sit down and listen to an album on vinyl every day, but that’s just not practical or realistic, as I have a young family at home…I have record players everywhere.
So, are you a vinyl guy?
It’s funny because I wasn’t when I was growing up – I was the CD generation. I did buy vinyl, but then when CD came out, I can remember that I felt it was better because there were no crackles. I have so many CDs – I haven’t sold them – but vinyl is my preferred way of listening. I have a few different hi-fi setups. I love the feeling of listening to vinyl and that if you don’t concentrate… it just stops and then keeps on spinning.
If you listen on a Siri speaker and ask it to play something, once it’s over it starts playing something else, which you kind of tolerate, but then when the third song comes on, suddenly, it’s ‘Oh my God! What is this? It’s driving me crazy!’ I like silence between stuff and records naturally have that.
How did you listen to music when you were growing up at home?
We had one of those things with everything built-in…
A music centre?
Yeah – it sounded good to my ears, but I can remember going to a friend’s house… His parents were divorced, and his dad had bought a sports car, a flashy apartment and a f*** off stereo! He had a big Luxman amp, a CD player and a pair of Heybrook speakers with a sub. I‘d never heard anything with a sub, and he put on The Nightfly by Donald Fagen. I was like, ‘Wow!’ I was almost tripping! I didn’t believe music could sound like that. After that, my aim was to try and buy a better amp.
You were born in Sweden, but you moved to Caracas in Venezuela in the ‘70s. What are your earliest memories of hearing music?
I can remember hearing music in Caracas, on American radio. It was a lot of great soul music… Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and a lot of Spanish crooners, like Julio Iglesias. Elvis was massive too. When I moved back to Sweden, I went to a garden party with some other kids and I heard ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ [by The Buggles], which I thought was amazing, and a song called ‘Flash in the Night’ by a Swedish band called Secret Service, which had that same kind of vibe. The first record I can remember buying on vinyl was by The Scorpions – the cover of the album [Blackout] had someone with forks over their eyes.
So, you moved back to Sweden when you were 10, and you were writing songs as a teenager – you signed a publishing deal when you were 15…
I had a band and we wanted to be rock stars. In my town there was a lot of what we used to call ‘poodle rock’ – everyone used to go to each other’s houses and perm our hair. It was guitar solos and big choruses… I lived in a suburb, and everyone liked rock – bands like Europe and Candlemass. We met a publisher who was on EMI and he was also publishing Europe. I was still at school, and you weren’t allowed to be employed before you were 16… The contract was essentially buying gear for me, so I got a little 8-track recorder and a mixing console, and I got to hang out in the studio, so it was a good thing. Even though I was living in a rock suburb, I was equally into Kraftwerk. I was a guitarist, which led to me listening to jazzy rock music – from Toto I quickly got into Mike Stern and [John] Schofield, and then I suddenly discovered Miles [Davis], and was like, ‘My God – this is a whole other world’. Before I was 18, I was into jazz and fusion, and then I got into Philip Glass and Steve Reich. I’ve never had a favourite music style.
Can you tell us about any projects you’re currently working on?
We have a label called Eastcote Recordings. I was also a partner in another label called Locomotion and we found this guy called Yungblud. We did his first album and then we signed him and we did another three albums on the label. It was good fun and I learned a lot of things. He’s now on Universal… I’ve worked for major labels my whole life and I wanted to get out of that because I found there was a limited scope to do anything interesting.
When we sold Locomotion, I thought that I didn’t want to do any business stuff again, but then because I was working with Jamie Woon and Seasick Steve, and I had reconnected with an amazing flamenco artist called Buika, who I had made a record with in 2015, and some new young artists, like Filip Clements, who is an indie–rock guy, I had all this music that wasn’t signed, so I started a record label.
Some of those artists, like Buika and Seasick Steve, were in the same situation [as me]. They were on major labels and didn’t want to be on them again, but they had music that they wanted to make. So, we’re trying it on our own for a while and seeing how it goes. I might be back making albums for major labels if the money runs out.
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