RS: When you're creating a song, is it different when you are
creating a rock song or making a dance song?
Richard Morel: No, it's funny. Either way I would just be writing
like I would do what I usually do, which is in the studio working, and
the song would be what it was. Then in the case of say "Anymore," the
club version was the first version. I went back and redid the song in
almost a guitar band format. And then, in other instances, the first
version was – with "Flawed," for instance – the first version was a rock
version. So it really varied song-by-song. I never approach it like:
OK I'm going to do this right now and then do this. It was just when I
had the songs that I liked, then I kind of balanced out everything to
make the two discs work.
RS: So of the eleven songs on here, how many songs did you write
to get it down to eleven?
Richard Morel: I think there was about twenty. Well, some of them I'd
released – there's an EP on iTunes, which has a couple of bonuses, and
we have another EP that's going to have others. Eventually I think
most of them will surface, but I think there were maybe twenty-five
songs.
RS: Outsider Music, is that your personal label?
Richard Morel: It's my label and I'm doing it with Michael Alago who
used to be a big A&R guy at Elektra; he signed Metallica and Rob
Zombie and all of those big rock-and-rollers. I had Outsider prior to
this, but then he came on board last year.
RS: Speaking about the rock tip, there's a lot of dance rock
sounds out right now, not just the Killers and Fall Out Boy, but the
rock boys beginning to dance. Do you think that's influencing you or
you influence them, or is it just parallel?
Richard Morel: I think it's parallel. I've been doing that for a
while – you know, growing up and listening to music in the 80s, that's
kind of what music was with bands like New Order, you know what I
mean? It wasn't even defined as "this is rock" or "this is dance," it
was just huge, especially from the UK. I thought there was a really
strong overlap of that. So it's always been buzzing around, and I
think it got defined more by radio than anything, where radio stations
would play certain genres. But I think there's a lot of
cross-pollination, and I think people listen to all different sorts of
music and then bring it into what they're doing. I think everybody
kind of influences everybody.
Working with Cyndi Lauper
RS: That makes sense. Speaking about the 80s, you worked on the
Cyndi Lauper's album. How did you get involved with that project?
Richard Morel: Well, they contacted me and asked if I would be
interested in writing some songs with Cyndi, and it seemed like a
great opportunity and a great idea, so I submitted some tracks. She
really liked them and then I went up to New York and we started
working together in the studio and writing and producing. It was very
organic from then on – we really hit it off – so it wound up being a
really good thing.
RS: Is it harder for you to work with your own vocals versus
someone else's vocals?
Richard Morel: Yes. Well, because I'm way more critical of my vocals.
I think anybody who's working on records where they're singing as well
will tend to be much more critical of their own vocals than they would
of someone else's. I mean, someone like Cyndi, she's one of the best
singers ever, so it's pretty easy to work with her vocals. She's
willing to go into totally different places, and it's a privilege to
work with a singer like that. On my own stuff, whether it's the song
or the vocal, you can get overly obsessive about all aspects of it,
which makes it a little more difficult.
