Young Gun Silver Fox’s Andy Platt tells us the story behind Moonshine, co-written with the songwriting legend…
The word of a new song from Rod Temperton was always going to cause a stir. The British songwriting legend died on 25 September 2016, but the legacy he left behind was enormous. Once a fish filleter in Grimsby, his career really took off when he answered an advert for a band in Melody Maker for a keyboard player while based in Germany. That band was Heatwave, and he quickly became their lead songwriter, penning early hits like Boogie Nights and Always and Forever that quickly catapulted them into the UK and US charts. The intricate layered vocal and instrumental lines, together with sharp rhythms, of their first album Too Hot to Handle would typify his work. After a second LP, Central Heating, which spawned The Groove Line, Put the Word Out and The Star of a Story, Rod decided to step back from performing with the band, though continued to write most of their output. It was then he came to the attention of Quincy Jones, just in time for Quincy’s remodelling of Michael Jackson’s solo career with Off The Wall, contributing the title track and the game changing Rock With You.
For a man who would become nicknamed ‘The Invisible Man’ for shunning the public eye and celebrity lifestyle, there was a point in the early 1980s when he was anything but. Rod would become Quincy’s right-hand man during his most prolific period, not only contributing songs, but often behind the arrangements on the albums too. These songs would include Stomp! For The Brothers Johnson, Give Me the Night for George Benson, Live in Me for Rufus & Chaka Khan, The Dude and Razzamatazz for Quincy himself, Yah Mo B There for James Ingram and Michael McDonald, Love Is in Control for Donna Summer, and many, many more. Then there was the Thriller album, of course, for which Rod composed the title track and even Vincent Price’s spoken lines.
Rod would continue to work throughout the 90s, 00s and beyond, including contributing to Mica Paris’s third LP Whisper a Prayer. While in later years his work may have been less pervasive, there’s no doubting just how much his work influenced soul and pop from the 1980s on. His sophisticated arrangements eschewing the ‘disco’ label that marred so many of his contemporaries’ careers in the US market. It was no surprise to see them try and follow his path.
You can see why a new song caused such excitement. Which brings us to Moonshine by Young Gun Silver Fox, a studio project from Andy Platts and Shawn Lee (who make up the band’s name respectively), and co-written by Andy and Rod. As the person who bought the soundtrack album to Escape to Athena (only released in Japan under the bizarre title Offside 7) just to get the Heatwave end credits track Keep Tomorrow for Me – it felt only right to… well, just ask!
Here’s what Andy Platts had to say…
In spring 2005, aged 26, I signed my first worldwide publishing deal. Keen to develop my writing style, I made a small list of people with whom I wanted to write. The list included people like Jon Oates, Brian Jackson and Rod Temperton – shy kids don’t get sweets right? I had my publisher send Rod a four track demo and a few months later to my complete surprise he replied saying that he was up for trying something.
So on a hot July day later that Summer nestled somewhere deep in Topanga Canyon, California, I found myself at Rod’s hillside home. We talked about music, my background and how, apart from the sun, he missed the UK and was shortly due to return there for good.
He told me he thought I had written some strong songs. He also told me I’d “written some so-so songs” – ouch! To be honest, I was more than happy to eat humble pie sat in the presence of a bonafide songwriting legend.
We talked more, smoked a shit load of cigarettes, and headed into his studio – a sparsely kitted out place, clearly all about songwriting as opposed to producing records. He told me a lot about about working with MJ, and played me some sketches of songs and demos MJ and Heatwave had recorded back in the day. You could see how proud he was of what he had done in his life.
Rod had a song idea that he thought would be good for my voice. He’d already written the music and had created a rough melody. We tweaked the melody and then wrote the lyrics together sat outside in the sunshine chain-smoking cigarettes.
Everything fell into place pretty quickly and we spent the day completing a very simple demo. I recorded my lead vocal and some rhythm guitar after writing the lyrics but the one thing I remember most clearly about the session was when we were discussing the section between the 2nd chorus and bridge. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes pondering our options before he announced “I’ve got it – you’re going to play a guitar solo”. My heart sank. The guy who had worked with George Benson at the peak of his powers was going to watch me record a guitar solo. I’m okay on guitar but no great improviser. So I did three takes of a solo. I completely stacked the first take (my god it was bad), played an okay second take but then I just about redeemed myself on the third take. For reasons unknown to me to this day, I decided to scat along with the third take (yes George Benson style). Rod said he was happy with it and that it “had something”. Whatever you say Rod haha.
On YGSF’s version Shawn plays a really tasteful acoustic guitar solo…a much better creative choice!
We went on to record huge amounts of backing vocals, clearly in the MJ style – I learned so much about vocal stacking and working quickly, profoundly influencing my backing vocal sounds in YGSF to this day. Upon surveying the track after we had finished, I was struck by just how tightly arranged everything was. Rod’s songs are amazing feats of musical engineering, without a trace of fat anywhere. All killer no filler, as finely tuned as a Swiss timepiece.
One of the last things Rod said to me just before I got in a cab to head back to Hollywood was “Good luck, I think you’ve got what it takes”. Whether or not he or I truly believed what he said, I have no idea, but considering the company he had kept in his life I appreciated the sentiment. Now nearly 20 years later, I am still creating music and touring the world, and a song created with one of the greatest songwriters of all time, a song emblematic of a significant point at the beginning of my career, has surfaced at the perfect time. Thanks to Shawn, it finally sounds how it was meant to be!
How FRICKIN’ Awesome! What a story. What a song!