Dan Patlansky’s latest album “Perfection Kills” makes a strong impression from the very first blues-laden riff. Somehow Patlansky has managed to reach even greater levels of raw, raucous rock than ever before. I spoke to him about the album, the message behind the title and the challenges of self-producing.
Stian Maritz: As far as these things go, the title of your latest album is very compelling. What’s the philosophy behind it?
Dan Patlansky: I took over the producer role on this album which is something I haven’t done for quite a while. The sound I had in my head was a very particular one that had more of a raw edge and organic feel to it. The way you achieve that in the typically sterile studio environment is by not overthinking things and not trying to make things perfect. Over the last couple of months I’ve done a lot of research about people trying to perfect art forms and how it’s a completely futile exercise in a way. There’s no such thing as a definite answer to this kind of thing. But in modern studios it’s very easy to go back and fix things up or overthink them so you end up killing the initial performance. So I tried really hard to avoid that and instead produce the album on gut feel.
SM: How long did the album take to record then?
DP: Only 10 days in studio from start to finish. It was quite tight and there was a lot of pressure but it forces you to accept things how they come out. If I’d recorded it for three months I would have done a lot of that overthinking.
SM: Where I think the album really shows this new direction is in the sound of the guitars. I think that a lot of producers would have said it’s too dirty or raw.
DP: Funny you should say that. When we were recording ‘Too Far Gone’ I set my guitar up in a way that almost makes it sound like the amp is broken. I’ll never forget, the studio owner Robin came in and said, “I think there’s something wrong with your pedal” [Laughs]. So it sounded a bit broken perhaps but that’s exactly what we were going for.
SM: And when did this approach to recording first take root for you?
DP: It’s been a long time coming. For the last two albums I worked with a great producer, Theo Crous, and I was really happy with his work. Every producer has their own style of course and I loved the way he does things. I saw him as a mentor and it was the best thing I could’ve done.
My favourite records of all time all have that in common, that characteristic raw edge. Most of the Zeppelin stuff, Rival Sons and even Pink Floyd records had that realness, rawness and energy that moves you. It’s big, but real. It’s taken me my whole musical career to learn how to get that sound from a production standpoint. It takes years of experience, and I think I’m still learning. It’s a very organic thing and modern production techniques can kill that kind of vibe quite easily. It’s almost a forgotten art form.
SM: I think that sometimes it might be easier as an accomplished guitarist to just blast out a million notes at a time. As a performer, how do you get out of your head and let the music flow freely so that there’s as much feeling as possible?
DP: It’s a very instinctive thing. My roots are the blues and classic blues is all about feel and phrasing that lets you express yourself. So that comes naturally. But the difficulty really came in when I was producing the album myself. I’d written most of the songs myself and had a part in writing them all. So at times I had to separate things in my head so that I’m the producer at one point and the player at another. That’s the difficult part. You can really run into troubles when self producing if you forget to look at the song from an outside perspective. I have to ask myself whether what I’m singing or playing is serving the song and I have to be critical and hard on myself. As a guitar player it can become a self-indulgent exercise with really long solos that may be fantastic from a guitar playing perspective, but not for the album as a whole. Working with Theo Crous taught me a great deal about doing this the right way.
SM: Last time we spoke you were combining your mainstay guitar Old Red with another neck from the ‘60s. What’s going on with the guitar these days?
DP: Yes, I combined the neck and electronics from Old Red into a new Stratocaster body that I’d liked. But since then that neck has almost completely disintegrated. That neck’s been around since 1962 and I’ve been playing it for a good 20 years so it came to the point where the neck was completely worn down and twisted. It actually became a nightmare to play, which I only realized early last year. We were touring with Ash Wilson and when he picked up my guitar he was completely shocked at how unplayable it was. I’d just gotten used to playing an unplayable guitar! [Laughs] So that neck is retired now, it just sits in my office and hangs around.
Patlansky’s approach has shown compelling results. “Perfection Kills” features monstrous riffs, tender ballads and a world-class guitarist at his very best. His pursuit in capturing the power of live performance is exceptional and it makes this album an absolute must for anyone remotely interested in the six string genres.
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Listen to “Perfection Kills” below on Apple Music.
