The first week was with my touring band, and we were quite excited to record together. But Nigel had this itching feeling, like he could do something else He wanted to move in a bit more daring direction. He said, "I want to take you out of your safety zone." Kept saying that - "It's just too easy."Godrich eventually talked McCartney into saving his band for the tour and playing nearly every instrument himself, just as he'd done on his first solo effort, McCartney. I want to make an album that's you." And I thought, "That's the kind of producer I need now." So we agreed to meet up for a test period - two weeks in London. And then I sent him a couple of records that I thought might either turn him on or off, or might just be a direction to go.MB: Demos you'd made?McCARTNEY: No, other people's records. I liked the idea of toying with a kind of Asian thing, a one-chord thing There's an artist called Nitin Sawhney who I like. It was just a vibe I was into at the time, that sort of droniness I didn't know what I'd do with it It was just a mood thing And Nigel said, "Mmm, no.
I know what album I want to make if I'm going to work with you. I liked the last couple of Radiohead albums, particularly the sound And Travis, The Invisible Band And Beck So we just met up, chatted and liked each other - I think I liked him. So I just rang him up and said, "If I can't have you, who's the man?" He chatted it around, thought about it, talked to his son, and a couple of days later he came back and said Nigel.MB: Had you been aware of Nigel's work?McCARTNEY: Yeah, but without knowing he was the man behind it. He just got to the stage where he thinks, very nobly, that he shouldn't produce I say to him, "George, the engineers need the ears. You're the ideas man." But I think it's very cool of him to know when not to do it. And I wrote the first one! So it's not like I'm nicking anyone's thing."I interviewed McCartney in two sessions during rehearsals - as he snacked on broccoli, green beans and a heavily buttered slice of bread - and later after a photo shoot at New York's Brooklyn Navy Yard. The day of the shoot, McCartney drove in from the Hamptons, the seaside retreat of the East Coast elite, where he spent part of his summer with his wife and their two-year-old daughter, Beatrice.
At 63, he's trim (a 33-inch waist) and a bit grey at the temples (the tabloids have delighted in accusing Mills of pushing hair dye on Sir Paul, who retorted that he'd been dyeing his hair for years). We began by talking about Godrich, who was recommended to McCartney by The Beatles producer George Martin.MARK BINELLI: Do you and George Martin still talk regularly?PAUL McCARTNEY: Yeah, we meet up quite a bit, actually. Particularly because we used his studio for the London end of the recording George always pops in, especially if he knows I'm there. He's one of the most important men in my life, and that's including my father, my brother, the Beatles - George Martin is right up there in the top five Really, I would like to work with him for ever. That would be my dream.MB: Does he still produce?McCARTNEY: No. He's got a hearing problem, like a lot of us from the Sixties We did listen to it too loud. And so now, on this new album, I thought, 'Why not? What am I frightened of?' There could be two songs in the world like that.
