Legendary producer Daniel Lanois first put his stamp on music history in the 1980s, teaming up with Brian Eno to redefine ambient sound and turn the recording studio into an instrument.
He went on to craft landmark, multi-platinum albums for iconic acts, including U2’s The Joshua Tree, Peter Gabriel’s So, and Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind.
He also worked with Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and Emmylou Harris.
The seven-time Grammy winner spoke to Quinte News about how he became interested in creating music.
“So that was my life, music, and I loved it more than anything. I wasn’t interested in sports or anything—all I wanted. Then I came upon a little flea market tape recorder, and it had the spool of tape on it, and I bought that little recorder and that’s how I started recording.”
“I was a very good editor as a kid, and so I had all that pretty together. So when people came to me I was able to listen to what they had and then make good musical suggestions about how to help them out. I never wanted to change anyone, I just wanted to enhance who and what they already were.”
We asked him to define what success has looked like during his illustrious career.
“For me, it comes back to the workplace rather than, are we in the top ten or not? While I’m making the music with people, I have very strong feelings that come to me and sometimes they’re quite powerful, and they’re waves of emotion, and those are the feelings that I trust, and I just pour them right back into the work.”
Lanois is performing at The Regent Theatre in Picton on Monday August 10 and we asked him to describe what people can expect.
“I work with two good singers, so we’ve got some nice three-part harmony worked up. Couple of new songs with developing the lyrics, so they will be heard for the first time on this little Ontario run. I’ll be bringing my little church in a suitcase, that’s my steel guitar. That will cover the gospel part of things. The nice thing about those hymns is there’s something timeless about them. Then I’m bringing my electrorig and we do a track called “Opera”, where we try and raise the roof of the edifice.”
A link to tickets can be found by CLICKING HERE
Daniel Lanois. (Photo: Nathan Brown)
