I attended a music teachers conference in Syracuse, NY a while back that featured a keynote address by Michael Kamen. I did my best to get a few minutes with him both before and after his address to ask him some Roger Waters related questions. I did not use a tape recorder because I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable or ambushed, we really just had a conversation. He very politely indulged me for a few minutes. It was nice of him to endure my narrow focus of Roger Waters questions, especially being that he has written major motion picture scores such as Mr. Holland's Opus, has worked with Eric Clapton, Metallica and others, and is now writing a symphony to be released on a major label.
I first approached him and told him that I was a big Roger Waters fan and that I was looking for him up on stage at the Jones Beach show with his oboe and he laughed.
He wanted to know how the show was, and I told him I loved it, and that he may be surprised to know that Roger seemed to have a really good time playing and singing without being so burdened by the production. He said that was nice to hear.
I asked him what it was like to work with Roger. He basically replied that Roger was great to work with and that he was friendly and personable. He said more than once that Roger is a "genius". "Roger is a producer who knows what he wants and guides the process."
This is a different approach than Kamen's work with Metallica, for example, where they had Kamen listen to tapes of their songs and come up with arrangements on his own for the orchestra to play with the band.
I noted that Michael had worked with "Pink Floyd" after working with Roger on his solo projects, and I asked if Roger minded that. He said that Roger wasn't too happy about it, but he wished Roger would get over all of that. "It did get more and more difficult to work with Roger as time went on."
I replied that Roger really seems to have gotten over a lot of that, as, again, he enjoyed himself at the concert, and had a band that included some other recent "Floyd" members.
I asked him what specifically the process was of working with Roger. "Roger does not read music, and admittedly has limited technical musical ability." Basically communication was non verbal, for example, Michael might sit at the piano and say "Would you like the orchestra to do this here?" And he would play in the appropriate range with whatever dynamics and articulation he thought would fit.
I asked him if he ever brought anything back to Roger that Roger didn't like, and he said, "Oh yeah", like it did happen often.
I asked him what it was like working at the Berlin Wall and trying to keep the orchestra and choir in synch with all the films and sound effects? He said that Roger at the time liked to use click tracks with headphone cues.
I asked about the glitch that happened in Berlin and he said it was Roger's fault, because he refused to sing at the dress rehearsal. They lied to the orchestra, and told them that they were going to play the show live, when really they taped the orchestra the day before... as you could hear during the glitch, they played the tapes of the orchestra. Achieving a volume balance between an orchestra and a rock band in a venue that big is extremely difficult, so they went right to the tapes.
In Michael's keynote, he spoke about somewhat similar experiences of working with the San Francisco Orchestra live with Metallica (an album that was released several years ago in November). The orchestra had microphones, but that doesn't raise the volume of the stringed instruments enough, so often they played at the very high end of the neck so that they could hear themselves and be heard. The orchestra was surprised by the shifting time signatures and odd measure bars present in Metallica's music, and they were equally surprised that Metallica played those odd bars exactly the same way every time!
When Kamen worked with Clapton, the classical musicians in the orchestra would look at Eric's hands with reverence to see how he managed to play certain guitar lines each night, in much the way they would admire the violin fingerings of a Paganini.
Kamen's keynote address about music education and other matters was interesting and inspiring. He is funny, intelligent and deeply concerned with the state of music education and the state of humanity. He does charitable work to get musical instruments into schools through the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation.
After seeing and speaking with him, I am anxious to hear his new millennium symphony, and even his collaboration with Metallica! Although I imagine he at first considered me an annoyance, he was probably thankful that I was there because I was quick to get the ball rolling in those first uncomfortable moments when he opened the floor to questions!