Scott Walker

Random and bite-sized facts on all things from the mythical figure that was Scott Walker. Totally random but totally fascinating if you're into it. Do you know Scott Walker now?

When Scott Walker recorded Climate of Hunter, he deliberately made no demos. He and arranger Brian Gascoigne worked from rough drawings of chord clusters that Walker had made, which were then turned into charts for the musicians. Producer Peter Walsh arrived at the first session without having heard a note of the music.

The musicians on Climate of Hunter initially didn't hear Scott Walker's vocal melodies. Walker felt that if they knew the melody in advance, their playing might become too predictable. Peter Walsh recalled Walker stopping a guitarist because his part sounded too obvious; from then on, the musicians didn't hear the vocal melody until the instrumental tracking was complete.

Scott Walker gave four tracks on Climate of Hunter deliberately unhelpful titles: “Track Three”, “Track Five”, “Track Six” and “Track Seven”. He explained that conventional titles might “lopside” or overload the songs. The lyrics, he felt, were already complete and didn't need another layer of meaning imposed by a title.

Mark Knopfler appears on Climate of Hunter, but not in the way you might expect. He plays guitar on “Blanket Roll Blues”, the album's closing track. Other musicians included Evan Parker, Mo Foster, Mark Isham and Billy Ocean.

Billy Ocean provides backing vocals on Scott Walker's Climate of Hunter. He sings on “Track Three”, which was also the album's only single.

Scott Walker's writing process became increasingly separated from the recording process. For Tilt, he said he spent a long time working on the words first, then waited until roughly two months before recording to develop the melodies. He wanted the lyrics to lead the music rather than writing words to an existing track.

Scott Walker refused to use click tracks when recording Tilt. He wanted the musicians to play together and discover the music as they went along. He said there was very little overdubbing and that the musicians worked from a basic chart rather than having every individual part written out.

The gap between Climate of Hunter and Tilt wasn't simply because Walker was unable to make another record. He said he couldn't find a record company willing to release his music without first requiring him to make a demo. He refused, and Tilt eventually appeared eleven years after Climate of Hunter.

During the making of The Drift, Scott Walker wanted a very specific percussion sound for “Cue”. A five-foot-square wooden box was built in the studio, placed on cinder blocks, and percussionist Alasdair Malloy attacked it with a concrete cinder block. Walker wanted the sound to have the huge, distorted proportions of something from a nightmare.

The infamous sound of meat being punched on “Clara” really is what it sounds like. Percussionist Alasdair Malloy punched a side of pork while recording the track. Walker wasn't looking for a conventional percussion effect; he wanted a sound that would serve the violent imagery of the song.

Scott Walker's “Cossacks Are” was partly inspired by hip-hop. Ed Horrox of 4AD recalled Walker telling him that he had been listening closely to hip-hop drum breaks and had worked hard on the drum beat for the opening track of The Drift, trying to create something he hadn't heard before.

The orchestral sessions for The Drift were recorded in one extraordinary day at AIR Studios. Producer Peter Walsh said the orchestra was recorded entirely in one pass, with no splices on the album. Musicians were even changing parts on the day while around 40 players waited to record.

Scott Walker's early career was built partly around the bass rather than the voice. When the Walker Brothers began in Los Angeles in 1964, Scott was the group's vocalist and bass player, alongside John Walker on guitar and Gary Walker on drums.

Scott Walker helped shape the Walker Brothers' records far more than their image as a conventional pop group suggests. The official Scott Walker archive notes that he was heavily involved in choosing the material, organising studio sessions and helping with production, before eventually deciding to work alone.

Scott Walker originally released Scott 4 in 1969 under his birth name, Noel Scott Engel. Unlike Scott 3, which had reached number three in Britain, Scott 4 failed to chart. Walker later suggested that the timing and expectations surrounding the record played a part in its reception.

Scott Walker's fascination with Jacques Brel went beyond simply recording his songs. In a 1967 interview he said he deliberately avoided meeting Brel because he didn't want the real person to destroy the image he had formed of him through the songs.

When the Walker Brothers recorded “The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore”, the session was originally supposed to produce four songs in only three hours. Scott later recalled that the first guitarist hired for the introduction wasn't playing it satisfactorily, and he insisted that the section be recorded again with different musicians.

Scott Walker's final Walker Brothers album, Nite Flights, marked a major change in his approach to recording. Walker later described it as the point when he decided that his records had to become complete artistic statements rather than attempts to satisfy record-company expectations.