Daniel Lanois Recent News

Lanois excited by Grammy nods

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:02:00 -0800

February 8, 2006

By JANE STEVENSON - Toronto Sun

He already has won nine Grammys, but Daniel Lanois says getting nominated never gets old.

The Hull-born, Hamilton-raised producer-songwriter-guitarist is up for three Grammys tonight at the Staples Centre in L.A., including in the top category of best album as one of the producers of U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

"It's always a lovely compliment," says Lanois, 54, down the line from his L.A. home. "It's never the thing that one goes after while working, but if somebody tells you, 'You look nice after a hard day's work,' it's like, 'Okay, thank you.' It's a chance to celebrate."

Steve Lillywhite is listed as the main producer of Bomb, but Lanois -- who also has produced albums for the likes of Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and Brian Eno -- says he was involved in a couple of tracks which didn't make it on the previous U2 record, All That You Can't Leave Behind. He helped out in the studio for another week on other Bomb tracks.

Otherwise, Lanois is excited about the other two Grammy nods for his latest solo album, Belladonna.
"It's great 'cause you know it's an instrumental record, so I didn't think anybody would pay any attention -- but they did. In fact, it's a very innovative record and I'm glad somebody spotted that. If you listen to the record, some of it, you don't know how it was done. And that's what people come to Danny Lanois for. We don't know how he does it. It's ongoingly mysterious, even to me."
Not that he's expecting to win. "I guess it's really great, 'cause it's sort of an unlikely invitation," he says. "I'm not expecting to get it but if I do then 'Let's have a party.' "

Lanois will arrive at the Grammys on a night off from his latest two-and-a-half week tour in support of Belladonna, which included a stop at New York City's Carnegie Hall just this past Friday.

"I've always said that 'great work leads to great invitations.' There doesn't seem to be any substitute for having done things from the heart for a lot of years. When you do things from the heart you actually touch a few hearts. And there's no amount of publicity or muscle action could ever replace that. It's actually the communication that we hope we achieve ultimately -- touching a heart."

Lanois will tour Australia and Scandanavia in April and play some select summer dates before launching another big year-long tour in the fall in support of a new singing record.

"It's a record that's built around this band (drummer Steven Nistor, guitarist Jim Wilson and bassist Marcus Blake) that I'm working with," Lanois says.

"So it's less of a Danny Lanois in the labratory record and more of a live-driven record. I write the songs, we record them, we roll down the hill, we've played them at a few local clubs, and if they sound good then we put them on the record or go back and re-record them. So we're using the live setting as a testing ground for songs."

Daniel Lanois is interviewed by Metro Toronto

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:06:00 -0700

Lanois harks back to Eno days on Belladonna.

If Daniel Lanois had to name his closest friend, you might assume he'd name any one of a number of high-profile musicians � the guys in U2, Robbie Robertson, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris or Willie Nelson � whom he's produced in the past few decades.
But the 53-year-old musician, producer and recent Canada's Walk Of Fame inductee, says he turns to his slide guitar most often for emotional support. "It's a reliable friend that's always with me, and I trust that friend," Lanois says prior to his appearance at the Winter Garden Theatre tomorrow and Saturday to plug his just-released fifth solo effort, Belladonna. (He'll also do an in-store performance at Sam the Record Man, 347 Yonge St., tomorrow at 3 p.m.) "I think people get in a real specific mood when they hear what they call my sound. They get transported to a place � an emotional place, if you like."

In his teens, he would often hang out in downtown Toronto, performing at one of several clubs along Yonge Street at the time. "In between my sets, I'd run over to this club � the Edison � where they showcased country music," Lanois says. "I'd see this great steel guitar player named Bob Lucier and loved the way he played. I later met him and he agreed to teach me how to play. And I've been with the instrument ever since."

At the same time he and his brother Bob were establishing themselves as studio wizards in Hamilton, Lanois caught the attention of King Crimson/Roxy Music keyboardist Brian Eno, who offered Lanois more lessons on guitar and how to create studio ambience and work with sound manipulation.

In turn, Lanois collaborated with the Brit on several of his �80s albums, including Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, Ambient 4: On Land and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks.

"Belladonna is a revisit of those great experimental years with Eno," Lanois says. "His philosophy was to make your work first, then decide how you could display the wares or campaign them. Since then, that's always been my mode of operation."

On the new disc, Lanois worked with such contemporaries as drummer Brian Blade (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell), jazz pianist Brad Mehldau and vocalist Daryl Johnston.

Lanois also sojourned in Mexico for a year while recording, absorbing the relaxing vibe.

"In the more out-of-the-way places in Mexico, there was something really beautiful in the tranquility � and the lack of technology," Lanois says. "I found myself asking some fundamental questions: �What do I do with my days and where am I spending them?� I thought, �Life is short, I'm gonna go expose my brain to some sonics.� I found them in the deserts, but I found them in the people as well � some of the happiest people I've met have had very little in Mexico."

IAN NATHANSON/METRO TORONTO
www.metronews.ca

The New York Times covers Daniel Lanois

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 00:06:00 -0700

Daniel Lanois's songs don't sound composed so much as hewn: roughly carved out of some sturdy primordial material like hardwood or, perhaps, rock.

They're not fancy; they still have unpolished spots. They let laconic melodies arise out of a few standard chords, to be repeated with modest variations for the length of a piece. They don't rush, and when they settle into a rhythm it's usually as basic as a march, a waltz or a reggae beat. For Mr. Lanois, musical simplicity leaves open spaces to be filled by wordless emotion.

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Billy Tompkins for The New York Times
Daniel Lanois playing guitar at the Hiro Ballroom.

Forum: Popular Music
At Hiro Ballroom on Tuesday night, he performed material from his new album of instrumentals, "Belladonna" (Anti), which was released Tuesday in Canada and is due July 12 in the United States. Playing guitar, pedal steel guitar or a hand-held keyboard, he led what he called an orchestra: drums, guitar, bass or keyboard, and, for a few songs, a trumpeter and a female singer. It was orchestral enough; the songs welled up to fill the room for a spellbound audience. Behind him, video screens showed angels, open roads, kaleidoscopic patterns and, for one song, live images of the drummer, Brian Blade.

Mr. Lanois has a thriving career as a producer for, among others, U2, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel. His own music reflects the contemplative side of what he does with them. There's Celtic music in his open chords and picked patterns; there's spiky blues syncopation and the choppy primitivist rock of his fellow Canadian Neil Young. When Mr. Lanois switches to pedal steel guitar, the songs take on a just a hint of country, but he also makes each hovering chord appear and vanish like an ectoplasm. And when Mr. Lanois set the beat aside now and then, to toy with sustained chords and shards of tunes, there was a trace of Indian music in the ways a melody gradually emerged from a mode.

The pieces developed through texture: the way Mr. Lanois teased out a note or gave it a distorted edge, the way Mr. Blade's cymbals filled out a sustained phrase like wind in a sail, the way a bass line became a counterpoint or an almost unnoticed pulse. One piece, "Oaxaca," was just a melody repeated in unison, each time starting out almost tentative and then turning richly inevitable. The music was pensive but never glum: more awestruck by its own imaginary landscapes. And when Mr. Lanois finally sang - on past albums he has written songs with words - it was to announce, "I feel joy." It's the joy of making music that seems selfless but is unmistakably handmade by a very distinctive hand.

By JON PARELES
Published: June 7, 2005

Labours of Lanois

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:06:00 -0700

Acclaimed Canadian musician/producer has little time to rest on his laurels. Walk of Fame must fit between new CD, concerts and Dashboard Confessional

During a celebrated career that has spanned nearly 30 years, Daniel Lanois has gone from Eno to emo and back again.

The 53-year-old, Hamilton-bred musician and producer, returns to Toronto this weekend to be inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. Famous mainly for his work with popular music icons U2, Bob Dylan and Peter Gabriel, he has lent his studio skills to a slew of projects � not all of them commercial juggernauts.

Last month, he was in Toronto to fine-tune a forthcoming disc by Dashboard Confessional, a.k.a. Christopher Carrabba, the young Florida singer/songwriter and popular purveyor of the soul-baring rock genre labelled emo.

"The kid's real smart. A great lyricist," says Lanois on the line from his Los Angeles home.

"I've really outdone myself with the arrangements. There are some really beautiful counter-melodies and sub-melodies. It's a really innovative record. I'm so happy I did it. I really hope it goes through the roof for him."

At the same time, Lanois is promoting a new disc of his own, Belladonna, an instrumental album he likens to the ambient soundscapes he recorded with fellow studio guru Brian Eno in the 1980s. It hits stores next Tuesday. He leads a four-piece band into the Winter Garden Theatre June 11 to perform selections from the new album, as well as songs from his earlier catalogue.

Prior to hooking up with Eno on 1980's Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror, Lanois's short resume included three albums of kids' music with Raffi.

"If we were to look back at our great Canadian exports, of which we had many, the ambient music chapter that took place in Hamilton is a relatively uncelebrated one � probably because it was just instrumental ambient music," Lanois says. "But, as is often the case in Canada, we pay no attention to things going on right under our noses. And then 10 or 20 years later, we think, `Wasn't that great?'

"The idea of ambient music is that not everything is on your face. Sometimes it's nice that something is stirring the imagination without punching you in the face. You can put the record on, whether it's Belladonna or one of those Eno records I did in the '80s, and make your own movie. You are now the director. You are not being directed or told anything. We're going to send you off on a trip and your own imagination will be the boss. That's a nice thing to do for folks."

In some ways, Belladonna is a stylistic continuation of its predecessor, Shine. That album, released in 2003, wasn't wordless, but it was also rooted in a low-key, atmospheric vibe.

Lanois has now released two solo albums in three years, after keeping silent on that front for nearly a decade. He credits his label, Anti, home to such independent musical spirits as Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Marianne Faithfull.

"They're music lovers and great supporters of music that might not be considered commercial," he says. "They've been egging me on to do an instrumental record for a while, to revisit those early passions of mine. Some of it is among my best work."

Lanois' best work is an impressive roster � including his contributions to U2's Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. His own favourite is 1997's Time Out of Mind, one of two albums (the other being 1989's Oh Mercy) he produced for Bob Dylan.

"There's a track on (Time Out of Mine), `Can't Wait'. I heard that the other day and I thought, `My God, I don't even know how we did it.' It was incredible. And I don't remember how I did it.

"I produce testimonial exorcisms," he continues. "That's what Danny Lanois does. The artist, whether they like or not, their heart and soul is going to be worn on the sleeve bigger than ever. That's my skill. That's my gift. That's what I bring out in people. And that's what I'll keep doing. I'm like a preacher. That's my gig."

VIT WAGNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
www.thestar.com