Simon Tocclo

If you hang around at upSweden you may eventually catch a glimpse of producer and songwriter Simon Tocclo before he vanishes into the Protools studio. Sometimes he brings along with him some of the artists he is producing and other days he will just be sitting there mixing on his own. Simon has dared to take the plunge, making a living as a producer, and right now he is up to finishing the first album of his own. "I guess I'm just an RnB/Hiphop/Pop producer that doesn't want to put another light album out there, but rather one that you should be able to sit down and listen all through."

- Since I have my family here in Umeå, I find it a much better idea that the artists should come here to work with me in a focused environment, then me traveling all over the world, he explains. Of course I can record a lot at home, but there are moments when you'd like to crank it up a bit to get that true live feeling ' which is where the upSweden studio comes in extremely handy. In return I'm bringing all these artists into the house, and of course upSweden is as well free to pitch them songs. And I have this idea about asking some artists to do short clinics at upSweden, talking about their experiences. Stuff like that is as important as pure technical knowledge.

Simon was born in Liberia 1974 and by the age of two he moved to Sweden, where he later started his first band at thirteen. Besides producing he has also been working as a dancer. Some well known artists he has been touring with, as supporting act, is Dr Alban and Michael Jackson ("Estonia 98" with the group Basic Element). But today his dancing shoes are merely collecting dust while Simon concentrates on music producing. Initially he signed a publishing deal with EMI Publishing but his career did not take off until he was living for some years in the US and working with Warner Chappel as a publisher. Simon stresses that he is a freelance worker and no employee.

- I'm working with all record labels, all management labels and all artists, he says. Today being a music producer has evolved into being a kind of "general consultant". So I tend to look at myself more or less as a project director and musician.

What help are you receiving from your publishing company, Warner Chappel?

- I'm using my publisher to get in touch with record labels. This can happen in two ways; either they simply recommend me for a certain project or they take my own songs and "shop" them to record labels and artists. The publishing company is also a helpful resource for CD copying, distribution and a lawyers input on deal negotiations.

Are you in for taking on productions for speculation like on a "producers cut deal"?

- Actually I have tried to cut down on that lately. In the past I used to do stuff like that but my recent experience is that you have to carefully pick your projects to be able to make a living as a producer. There's an awful lot of people out there who are extremely good and really could make it as top artists. Marie Almström is one good example. I first met her by accident while she was in a RnB group and I promised to help her with a song later on, based on a spec deal. But that soon turned out to become one of my main projects! We have received good feedback from the labels on her material so far, but it's still too early to tell about the future. Personally I believe strongly in Marie and she's definitely one of the greatest vocal talents that have grown out of the upSweden concept.

Examples of Simons clients are Stockholm Records, BMG and the US labels Sony and Warner. But his plan is to slowly cut down on label productions to focus more on his own album, that has been filed "work-in-progress" for the last three years.

- This my own work has always got interrupted by other projects, he complains. An important reason for me to move back to Umeå was to find the time required to finally finish up my own album. In the states I was constantly moving around ' lived some time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Mexico City. To be a working freelance producer, you have to travel a lot just to get the jobs and to be sure you are where things do happen. Beside my own record I am now working on three other productions, but when they are finished I will be closing the factory and concentrate on my own album.

Would you mind telling us about your music, how you are working and with whom?

- The idea to make an album has been with me for a long time. I have been lucky to end up working with many great and established artists and sometimes when a song has got "left over" I have felt that "this song should really fit in with my own album". This started as soon as I moved to the states and started working with artists like Dog Pound ' Snoops group, Dionne Jackson and Digital Underground's the group 2Pac was in. Then I started thinking that "now I'm going to save up songs for my own album" and for each session I produced I made sure to also record one extra song for my future album. At the moment my future album has 42 recorded songs in the pot. It's going to cross over quite some musical styles!

Sounds like you may get a tough job to find a concept for gluing everything together?

- Yes, I guess that has been the issue. But on the other hand I actually try to go against main-stream here, and do exactly what I want to do. I believe that as long as you are making music with love it really doesn't matter what genres you are into. During the recent years we have seen more and more producers releasing so called "producers albums", where there usually are a lot of "featuring". Depending on which artists are featured, listeners tend to expect a certain style. So it's true that if I'm recording with Dog Pound, it will become "West Coast", and when I was recording with Terror Squad it surely turned "East Coast". But speaking about the "gluing concept" of my album, I guess that would be my harmonies and beats that stick to all the material. And since I'm a songwriter I always make sure to put my personal touch, lyric-wise, on the album, especially when working with vocalists. The most upcoming plans for the album is that I will go for a long journey to Germany, UK and US to record the last songs and have the album mixed. Then we have to start figuring out which Territories to release it in.

- Regarding my album and the state of the Swedish record business right now I'm afraid I have to say that we are not looking into that market at all. The only way you can work professionally with music in Sweden is by producing foreign acts that are coming here to record. To be an artist in Sweden is unfortunately not an option, economically speaking, unless you are into arena rock or "doing the Marcolio thing".

- I do not understand how people can complain over the fact that Swedish record sales are decreasing. I mean, there are only eight million people here and soon everyone will have a broad band Internet connection. And besides, recent releases do not stand up to the quality standards of the past. Now there is this market pressure demanding that everything has to be handled extremely rapidly. What I'm trying to do is to go back to old-school in making no hurry, since I feel that my material is in fact timeless. I have never thought things like "I should really pick this person now because he/she is hot". In stead I have taken my time to sit down and write songs out of my own feelings for the material.

When Simon Tocclo now is producing his own album he is moulding himself into "the artist". He is in fact producing his own lyrics, his own music and his own mixes. To be seated on multiple chairs, like that, is definitely calling for a certain perspective.

- To me, the most important thing is not that this album has to sell incredibly well, but that I will be able to look back and think that "I did a damn good job on that album". I'm not saying that I'm a perfectionist, but there really has to be a concept gluing the album together. Today there are not many albums that stand out as a brilliant piece of work on its own. When I was a kid I could run home after buying a Depeche Mode album, put down the needle at the first track of side one, listen through all the songs and then flip the vinyl over and listen through all songs of side two. Today it's very rare not to use the skip button when checking out a CD someone gave you. I guess I'm just an RnB/Hiphop/Pop producer that doesn't want to put out another light album ' but rather one that you should be able to sit down and listen all through. There has been a few albums of that kind lately…

Which ones, according to your taste?

- The RnB singer Joe keeps making brilliant songs, in my opinion. Every album of his is great! I also regard "Cronic 2001" by Dr Drey a good one, it just stays on the track all time. On the other hand I might see that record as… hmmm, maybe I would have appreciated the message if I was younger? All this bullshit about "bitches", fuck this and fuck that, is getting a bit tiresome in the long run. But Drey manages to get away with it since he keeps a healthy distance. And I definitely endure the production work he did for Eminem, Mary J. Blige and others. But the biggest star among producers are Timbaland. He has done so many different styles and created so many crazy sounds! There are no other producer that has been giving so many artists their big break. And to my greatest surprise I heard he had been producing Nsync! He has created this rule that "there are no rules". Another instant source for inspiration is Steve Wonder. Unfortunately it was a while since he put out a good album, but Stevie will always be Stevie with me! Then we have LA Reed and Babyface that I think are very skilled producers and songwriters. They make the perfect school example for "how to write a hit". My musical tastes are incredibly broad, actually. I guess all the rappers I have been working with should be rather chocked to know how much Depeche Mode really has inspired my grooves. I grew up with Depeche, Howard Jones, Kraftwerk and the entire "synth package". Later on when NWA and rap groups like Public Enemy came around, I was really turned on, and started thinking that I wanted to combine the synth blopping with beats. Today I won't call myself a true Hiphop producer and if I should pick up a Hiphop record for listening I would choose some of the older releases. An example of a contemporary release I like is Peter Pablo, produced by Timbaland with a crazy sound. Pablo comes from Atlanta ' "The Dirty South".

To round up the chat I asked Simon to talk a bit about equipment and his choice of recording and production tools.

- I prefer to work in Logic, since this software is almost the standard here in Europe. By that you can easily bring a production with you to different studios. I have no problems with working in Cubase, but if you do you will run into problems as soon as you have to move the production to a Protools rig. Ninety percent of all records are mixed and mastered on Protools, that's a fact, and unfortunately Steinberg has chosen not to support Protools. Logic, on the other hand, does directly support the Protools hardware. In studios running Protools there are almost no one using the Protools software, except the movie sound engineers. So there is always a copy of Logic in the studio and if you show up with Logic files everything will be fine. However, if you would like to bring a Cubase song you would have to prepare every track as an audio file of the entire song length ' track 1, track 2, track 3 and so on ' which is way too cumbersome. However, In the states the Akai MPC60 still rules together with ADAT. Yes, they are a bit old-school over there! While working in the USA I got to learn more about ADAT then I had ever wished to.

Per@upsweden.com