Exclusive interview with Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls by Mick Burgess

“Mick Burgess talks to New
York Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain
about the making of Dancing
Backward In High Heels...”

WHEN THE NEW YORK DOLLS were at Blast Studios, Newcastle, England, to record their latest album, Mick Burgess took the opportunity of interviewing Syl Sylvain. The band performed three sold-out concerts at the local Newcastle venue The Cluny, on September 4, 5 and 6 during the recording of the album.

Mick: You've got the whole world to choose from, so what brings a bunch of New Yorkers over to sunny Newcastle to record new material?

Sylvain: I guess its work you know, and Newcastle has been such an incredibly nice, hospitable place for us. They come out of the pubs to see us when we're walking down the road. We played three nights at The Cluny and we were so well received. There's such warmth and open hearts round here, that it's the place to be. For any musician, you go to where you are wanted the most and right now for us its here in Newcastle. One of the main reasons that we are here is because of Ged and Eric at Demolition Records up here in Newcastle. They had so much faith in us and just loved what we were doing and they really wanted us to come over to do the record.

Mick: Is this the first time you've recorded in England?

Sylvain: No, no, we've recorded here many times before throughout the ages but it's our first time in Newcastle.

Mick: You've been over for a few weeks now, how have you found life in England compared to the States?

Sylvain: It's just so friendly over here. There is such a warm hand that people give out to you no matter where you are from.

Mick: Have you been able to sample any of the local delights or have you been pretty much hard at work the whole time you've been here?

Sylvain: We haven't really had that much time to get out of the studio, but as busy as we have been we have been stepping out here and there. I have been into the City Centre for a little while which was fantastic. I just love Newcastle.

Mick: What about a football match? That's big up here in Newcastle?

Sylvain: Oh, no I haven't been to one yet. That would be like a vacation for us. We just didn't have the time to do that unfortunately. Maybe next time?

Mick: The main reason that you are here is to record a new album which is the follow up to last years Cause I Sez So. This will be your fifth studio album in almost forty years, so in New York Dolls terms this is pretty fast work since your last one. Are you in a rich vein of writing form at the moment?

Sylvain: It is a prolific time for us but having said that as a writer, you're always bustin' out a tune — at least one that you want to hear. I still like to write. The way I hear things coming out, I think it's the most creative record that the New York Dolls, and me and David in particular, have ever done. We've worked with a lot of great people, and I'm not putting anybody down and I'm not trying to compare it with earlier versions of The Dolls, but as far as song-writing goes I think that these are the best songs that we have ever come up with.

Sylvain Sylvain [Photo by Chris Becker]

Mick: As far as style goes Cause I Sez So was probably the most varied New York Dolls release to date and in many cases was quite a departure from your rock 'n' roll roots. Will you be spreading your musical net widely again or will you be keeping things simple and direct?

Sylvain: What they love us for is Personality Crisis, Looking For A Kiss, Trash and stuff like that. But we've already done that. We don't have to make records. We have a name which we can use and perform probably for the rest of our lives. That's not the kind of musicians and performers that we are. We're doomed to write songs whether they are good or not, are well received or not, or flop like they did in the beginning.

We were told that we didn't know how to sing, we didn't know how to write and we couldn't tune a guitar, so why even bother. But you know what? We thought we looked pretty damned good doing that, even if it was a big crash. We had the last laugh though. It's like those guys that'll say "You only had one hit", but at least we got there once!!

We never really wanted to be stars; that was never in our minds. Not that we never had that conversation, but we just became that. We thought it would be nice to last for two weeks as we just wanted to entertain ourselves. The norm of the day was so mundane. Stadium Rock 'n' Roll became more like opera and nothing to do what we thought Rock 'n' Roll should be.

As musicians we cannot help but do something that's important to us — and that is to write new music. We may feud and fight and try to make the best out of things. It's sometimes a love and hurt situation, but we come up with new music that represents what we are about today; and at this moment we want to do a record that shows many different sides to the band.

Mick: Before you entered the studio in Newcastle did you have any ideas or demos already prepared or has everything been written from scratch?

Sylvain: We had a lot of ideas and we've had a long time to work on them…. about two weeks or, as you say, a fortnight! We came as prepared as possible as we all have different commitments with performing and solo careers, so we didn't have that much time really, but it's not the time that's important; it's how much you can pour out of your soul.

Mick: How do you tend to write? Do you all bring ideas to the table and knock them around until a song develops; or do you tend to jam together and develop ideas that come from these?

Sylvain: That's very close to how we do it. A lot of time there's the hand signals saying "Yeah, that's great" or "No, that's shit". We work through a lot of ideas by improvisation and we learn a lot through live performance. We did the shows at The Cluny, where we played through some of our new songs; some of them were more complete than others. We played them, worked on them, and improved them by playing them live and seeing how they worked and made changes where we thought necessary.

Mick: Have you ever come across a time where one or more of you just can't seem to come up with anything?

Sylvain: To write a good song is such a hard thing to do. If you're doomed to write songs then you have to write songs, but you're not going to be able to write every day. A song may be good for you or it could be good for somebody else. You've just got to write the song and worry about who's going to get it later. Sometimes I write songs which I call 'stoppers', where I can't take it any further at that particular moment so I'll put it to one side and give it a break and move onto the next one.

One day, all a sudden, either a piece of that one, or the results needed to finish that one, will manifest. So instead of trying to force things, we decided to make a u-turn. The song will come if you treat it right. It's like giving birth and that's the way it is with songs = you can't really sweat over them too much. If they take too much thinking then you're probably on the wrong track. If you're flying on automatic then that's it. If it takes an enema to get there, you just better forget about it and plug it up. The more you write the better you get at it; it comes with experience.

Mick: How many songs have written so far?

Sylvain: We came to Newcastle with about twenty ideas and we recorded about sixteen of them, and at the end of the day we'll end up with about ten really good songs which will cross that line and become magic.

Mick: So you'd prefer a shorter album with 10 great songs than a longer one with 15 not so good songs?

Sylvain: I like to look at it in the way the whole thing fits and makes a whole. Just because someone makes you a big pie doesn't necessarily mean that it'll taste nice. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter about the size of that pie, it's all about the taste and the flavour in every little bite; and even though it's only ten songs, so long as those songs pass that magical point then we'll have a great record.

Mick: Do you have any titles sorted yet?

Sylvain: Some of the songs have pretty cool titles. There's a song called Kids Like You, which is amazing. David wrote the most beautiful lyrics to that and I wrote the music and the organ part. That really has a Leonard Cohen feel to it. David sings that so well in that beautiful baritone, raspy, Bluesy voice of his. There's also The End of the Summer and that is the hit of the album to be honest.

We've got another which is a real rocker, a kind of Sixties Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheel kind of tune. It has a real R&B feel to it. It is really Newcastle-ish in a way, you know the way that you guys do R&B and Soul. We didn't set out to get that sound it just happened because we're here, I guess. That's the beautiful thing about the New York Dolls and the way me and David work together. That's a song called Round And Round. There's a great line in there where David goes "I wanna listen to the tambourine" and then there's nothing but drums and the tambourine going "doo-dah da-doo dah da doo dah!!" That's so cool and really dancing. I have to say that I think these are the best set of songs that me and David have written in years.

Mick: On your last album you reworked Trash from your debut album. Why did you decide to do that?

Sylvain: We always do a cover or we do one of our own songs. And why shouldn't we cover ourselves — it's great for our royalties... Ha!! We always try to lay our signature over a song and make it our own. On this record we've done a cover of I Sold My Heart To The Junkman which is a Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles number from back in the Sixties. It's such a great song and we've done it our way.

There's a girl called Stephanie who worked in the pub around the corner called The Ship Inn singing on the album. One day I heard this beautiful voice coming from the pub and it was Stephanie and I thought "Wow, we need her singing on the album". It then all of a sudden became like a movie — she was doing our catering from the pub and then she appears on our album. She also knew some singers from a college in Leeds and we brought them into the studio to play.

So you see we're using the local fans and acquaintances on the album. They also knew a sax player who came in here and did some incredible sax work. We did this very Baroque style of song with the girls called You Don't Have To Cry. It's so beautiful and Stephanie who was singing also knew a string section. One night she went down to Leeds and brought us some singers and the next night she went back down to Leeds and brought us a string quartet. They laid down such a beautiful melody and David wrote some gorgeous lyrics for that one too.

Mick: On 2006's One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This album you featured a special guest appearance by Bo Diddley on the album's bonus track Seventeen. Were you in the studio when Bo laid down his parts?

Sylvain: I didn't come down to the studio the night Bo Diddley was there as I was sick. I was thrilled though that he appeared on our record; it was a real honour. We try to utilise special guests but it depends on whether we can get them there and that depends on schedules, and where they are at the time and whether we can get them over to work on the album.

Mick: David played with Howlin' Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin at the Radio City New York in 2003 playing Killing Floor and this was featured on the excellent Lightning in a Bottle DVD. You also guested on his album About Them Shoes. Did you ever consider inviting Hubert to play on the album?

Sylvain: You know what, if he was here, and he was available, I'd say yes straight away but unfortunately it's a long way and it's all about timing so we couldn't get him involved.

Mick: Is it your plan to finish all of your writing and recording here or will you be moving on somewhere else to mix the album and finish things off?

Sylvain: Ninety-nine per cent of the album has been recorded and finished in Newcastle and then we have to do the mixing. If there's anything left to be done then Jason Hill, our producer, will do that in California where he lives.

Mick: How did Jason originally become involved?

Sylvain: We had a few shows together about a year or two ago where we performed with his band Louis XIV at a festival, and Jason was a big fan of good music like T-Rex and the New York Dolls. He's grown up loving that so he's got that in his heart and soul. When his name first came up I was so grateful as I thought we were doomed with some of the other names that also came up. It's worked out great for us and he's taken us exactly into the realm of sound that I think we should be in.

Mick: Is he a hands-on producer, a slave-driver or someone to bounce ideas off and generally get the best out of you?

Sylvain: He's kiss-ass when you have to be and he can be a slave-driver when he needs to be, so he has the two of them which gets the best out of us. His balance and bedside manner are perfect and he gets the job done. He sees your side of the story and can explain so clearly what he is thinking and he just clears away any obstacles to the creative process.

Mick: Technology-wise, is he keen on trying new recording techniques or is the approach more of a back-to-basics affair of the band in the studio together playing on vintage equipment and analogue recording?

Sylvain: We're using everything together. Any recording at the end of the day winds up being digital, no matter what we like to do. We do have a shit-load of vintage instruments and pedals and noisemakers and beautiful analogue gear. We're lovers of that. I've been collecting that sort of stuff since the old days. So when I first talked to Jason we talked about what equipment each of us had.

When I sent him my first demos he was saying, "How did you get that old Vox organ sound?" I thought: "Wow, he was really interested". All the other ones I have worked with have gone "Oh, are you going to give me that old thing again?" Jason was so different; he was really into using the old vintage equipment to get the perfect sound for us. We're so lucky that we have Jason Hill who understands exactly what we want to do. The same things turn us on.

Check out nydolls.org | facebook.com/nydolls | myspace.com/newyorkdolls.

Check out MotorBar's review of Dancing Backward In High Heels.

home | top of page | all CD reviews