Meet the Mixer
02 Jun 2017
Very few people can say they have watched musical history being made. As a sound engineer, Richard Lush was not just there to witness it, but to help create it.
In 1967, at the age of 18, Richard Lush had a job that many would kill for. But he didn’t see it that way at the time. As secondary sound engineer for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, Lush would often arrive at Abbey Road Studios at around 2pm, and wouldn’t leave until 7am the following day.
“It wasn’t an envious job,” he says. “We would get in and get everything ready, and then [the band] would drift in at about 7 o’clock and have something to eat. It was then we’d know we were in for a late one.”
The album would go on to sell more than 32 million copies, making it one of the most successful albums ever produced.
Lush’s work with The Beatles didn’t end there. He went on to be involved in the live broadcast of All You Need Is Love in 1967. The song was the first live global television link and was broadcast to more than 400 million people in 25 different countries. Lush considers the performance one of the most satisfying moments of his long and colourful career.
“Everything went right. It could have all gone very pear-shaped,” Lush reflects. “We’d rehearsed it many times, but when suddenly you do it live in front of all those people, you think ‘Oh gosh, have I done the right thing?’. But it was very successful. Everyone played well and then three minutes later it was all over. There was a great sense of relief when it was all done.”
Lush loved the satisfaction of recording something to the highest possible standard. “There’s nothing like seeing a fabulous singer come in and do a great job,” he says. “When you do something that’s groundbreaking and it goes well, it’s a great feeling. It’s like climbing a mountain. You can’t really get any better than the day you climbed Mount Everest.”
But Lush says that as technology has progressed, the art of sound engineering has become too stale and calculated. “It was different back then. We were breaking new ground, trying to create new sounds on the fly. Now they’re really just repeating what’s been done. It’s become too predictable and organised.
“The fact that people can sing badly and you can simply fix it is a crime and a shame.”
Despite a career packed with historical moments, if Rush could relive anything it would be the recording of The Beatles’ A Day in the Life. “I’d go back to that night when the orchestra first played. I was in the control room with fellow sound engineer Geoff Emerick. We were on our own and we thought ‘Wow, here we are at the age of 18 and 21, in charge of all this.”
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