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 Gary Michael Langan was born on 19th April 1956 in London. From the age of seven he studied piano and sat
through his Royal College exams. When he was around fourteen he started
to go to sessions with his musician father, who used to play on
programmes such as the BBC’s Music While You Work.
It was at this time that he realised that he didn’t enjoy the
performing side of things, but was more interested in the way that
records were made, although he continued to play trumpet in dance and
jazz bands until he left school at the age of seventeen.
He
then got his first job at Trident Studios before the bosses realised he
was too young. Disappointed by this Gary went to college for
a year and got a degree in sound engineering before being offered a job
at Sarm Studios by the owners after they met his father at a reception
at the Dorchester Hotel. He accepted the job of tape op and worked with
the likes of Gary Lyons, Mike Stone and Roy Thomas Baker. The first
album he worked on was for Duane Eddy. He was also the tape op on
Queen’s classic album A Night At The Opera
where he worked on the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody
and continued to work with them on their two follow-up albums.
The first artist that saw him working as an assistant engineer was
Lynsey de Paul, before going onto work with the Boomtown Rats.
After
that Gary met Trevor Horn of the Buggles and engineered their first
album, where he won the NME Engineer Of The Year Award
for the track Video Killed The Radio Star.
He continued to work with Horn, got involved with the Yes
album Drama as well as with
Dollar and ABC's The Lexicon Of Love.
By this time he had became Horn's right hand man in Horn’s
production team which also included Anne Dudley and J.J. Jeczalik. It
was around this time that he became a freelance engineer and got
introduced to Malcolm McLaren when Horn was producing his album Duck
Rock. Gary went to South Africa, the USA with
McLaren and Horn to recording everything he could to use on the album.
After that came the Yes album 90125
which saw the engineer “seeing little green men
crawling up the wall” due to boredom until one day the
group scrapped a drum riff. Impressed with the tracjk he had the
idea of sampling it on a Fairlight. With the help of Jeczalik they came
up with a demo track that would later become known as Close
(To The Edit) and thus the Art of Noise were created
in early 1983. Due to the poor quality of the Fairlight it was Gary who
boosted the sound using his engineering skills and brought the sound up
to a high standard. The techniques used by both men created sounds that
had never been heard on a record before and managed to baffle
experienced sound engineers as to how their records were being made.
Because
the Art of Noise was a part time project, Gary was able to co-produced
ABC’s second album Beauty Stab. He
also worked with numerous other artists either as a producer,
engineer or remixer including Paul McCartney, Spandau Ballet, Billy
Idol, Nik Kershaw, Scritti Politti, Jody Watley, Divinyls, The Dream
Academy, Drum Theatre and The The. In addition to his duties as and
engineer/producer Gary founded One Management in 1983 to look after
engineers, producers and programmers before founding Metropolis Studios
in Chiswick, London in 1985.
In
1987 Gary, Jeczalik, Dudley and Duane Eddy won a Grammy Award for
the Art of Noise hit Peter Gunn from
the previous year, but by this time he had moved on from the
group but remained connected to it and his engineering duties were taken
over by various close-circle engineers. For the remainder of the 1980s
and throughout the 1990s, he continued to produce, engineer and remix for
the likes of Public Image Ltd., Pepsi & Shirley, Then Jerico, Sigue
Sigue Sputnkik, Jimmy Somerville, Belouis Some, Spear of Destiny,
T’Pau, Yen, Propaganda, Voice of The Beehive, Pele, My Life Story, The
Aloof, Hugh Cornwell (formerly of The Stranglers), Chris Hughes (a.k.a.
Merrick, ex-Adam and The Ants), Big Country, Flowered Up, Jon Carin, Gay
Dad and Hannah Jones to name but a few before going on to work with
more diverse artists in the new millennium including James.
The
2000s have seen the engineer’s skills reach new heights after
working with producer and orchestra leader Jeff Wayne. Wayne
asked Gary to remix and restore Wayne’s 1978 classic masterpiece Jeff
Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds into
new 5.1 surround sound mixes for the SACD reissue. The
release of the boxset for the album contains a documentary DVD of
the story of the making of the album that features Gary talking about
various aspects of the album. In addition to that album, he was also
involved in the making of the album, Jeff Wayne’s
Muscial Version Of The War Of The Worlds – ULLAdubULLA II: The Remix
Album. For the live tour he was appointed the Senior
Sound Advisor, Senior Front of House engineer & Head of Sound which
involved him designing the sound systems for each venue of the
sold out 2006 shows. The show's cast featured Justin Hayward, Tara
Blaise, Chris Thompson, Alexis James, Anna-Marie Wayne and Russell
Watson with Wayne’s orchestra. A DVD of the Wembley Arena show
was released including a behind the scenes documentary of the tour
including sound checks for each member of the cast.
That
same year saw Gary, Jeczalik, Dudley, Horn and Morley involved with
making of the Art of Noise archive boxset, And What
Have You Done With My Body, God? He also took part in
some of the promotion work for it including contributing to the
book that came with the set as well as radio interviews. Next up
was yet another collaboration with Wayne on a new
remastered version of Highlights From Jeff Wayne’s
Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds in 2007
before going on tour again with the show that played to sold out
venues in China, Australia, New Zealand and ending at the O2 Arena at
the end of that year.
In
the past 30 years Gary has become on the countries most sort after
enginner/producers. In 2008 he has produced the new album for
ABC, teamed up once again with fellow ex-Art of Noise member
Trevor Horn recording Escala, previously before that with Lisa
Stansfield in 2004 and has taken on FOH duties for PALLADIUM.
April 2009 saw him team up yet again with Horn and Anne Dudley
when he was in charge of sound when ABC performed their classic The
Lexicon Of Love album at the Royal Albert Hall.
In
addition to his work already stated, he has also been involved with
the soundtrack for the remake of the Magic Roundabout, The
Roosters debut album and work on the research & development for
the PSII game Play Mix. He is also
the only member of the Art of Noise not to have made a solo album or
become a member of another act since the Art of Noise. One thing is for
sure, whatever projects Gary becomes involved with in the
future, you can be sure it will sound fantastic.
©
Copyright K.M. Whitehouse 2008-2009
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