Longtime collaborators Keith Urban and Dann Huff have looked back on one of their most contentious studio experiences, which involved a particularly grueling hour-long solo session.
It is well-documented that all-star producer and session pro Huff was recruited by Capitol Records in 2002 to produce Urban's third studio album, Golden Road, in an effort to make it sound more “guitar-oriented.”
Article continues below“I discovered this little camcorder video that I found, that the engineer had filmed of me playing the solo of Somebody Like You,” Urban remembers.
“I watched it for the very first time when I rediscovered it. [When] I was watching, I went, ‘Oh, my God, that's so cool. He captured the solo. There it is.’
“And then you had me do it again, and then I did it again, and then I'm fast forwarding it, and I swear the tape goes for like an hour – over an hour – and I'm playing the same thing over and over.
“I'm sitting there in a tank top – sweating and exhausted – so pissed off at you. Like, ‘What the fuck do you want?’” he adds with a laugh.
There was method behind the madness, though, and Huff had Urban looping over the same solo for a reason. He was "looking for the magic", but he just didn't know where that magic would come from.
Huff's production approach embraces the philosophy that “there's magic in different places when you play the solo”. Huff was trying to squeeze out and tie together all those different magical nuances that come from playing the same solo over and over again, for an hour straight.
Urban may have been less-than-pleased at the time but the collaboration worked, and it has continued working ever since – Huff served as one of the key producers of Urban’s latest record, High.
In an interview with Guitar World upon the album's release, the country star revealed his pickup obsession during the recording process – and teased his forthcoming signature model with PRS.
