Watch the Tony Platt video with Tony talking about recording AC/DC’s Back in Black
Tony Platt’s career in the music business started at Trident Studios in London but he made his name as an engineer at the now legendary Island Studios. Working his way from assistant engineer to engineer on sessions with the likes of Free, Traffic, The Who, Rolling Stones, Sutherland Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Jess Roden and Mott the Hoople to he came to engineer albums for a hitherto unknown Jamaican artist, Bob Marley, which would launch reggae music into the mainstream for good. This association led him to complete ”Funky Kingston” for Toots and the Maytals and work with several other notable Jamaican artists such as ZapPow, Lorna Bennet, Harry J’s All Stars, Aswad and The Cimarons.
However, although Tony Platt’s reputation is principally based on his work in the world of rock, at Island he gained other more eclectic experience working on the numerous orchestral, commercial and pop sessions that came through the studio and some fairly eccentric projects including a 30 piece avant garde jazz band and an album consisting entirely of Tibetan bells ! After working with the various spin off projects from the recently disbanded Free – Sharks, Toby, Peace and Kossoff, Kirke,Tetsu and Rabbit and as engineer for Muff Winwood on the debut Sparks album Kimono in my House he finally left Island and turned freelance.
Having recorded demos that prefaced deals for Thin Lizzy and the Stranglers he became engineer for Mutt Lange. With Mutt, Tony worked on the AC/DC albums Highway to Hell and Back in Black, Foreigner – 4, Boomtown Rats – Fine Art of Surfacing and Broken Home and AC/DC asked him to mix the soundtrack on their documentary film and then to work with them on Flick of the Switch.
When he joined the Zomba producer roster in 1980 Tony enjoyed immediate success producing and engineering the work of artists such as Samson (with Bruce Dickenson singing) & Iron Maiden, Krokus, Motorhead, Gary Moore, Cheap Trick, The Cult, Marillion , the list goes on.
His philosophy has always been to enhance music by the use of technology . He has always kept very much apace with the rapid advances in audio and music technology that are taking place – from computers to the new breed of all digital consoles – and so is incomparably well placed to achieve this.
His constant desire to try new recording techniques and musical styles has led him to involvement with ambient artists Low Pass and industrial metal artists Die Krupps and Spine Grinder.This knowledge of combining recording techniques has been invaluable to a new progressive band such as Anathema and his respect for the value of a good song has contributed to the high quality of work from Flowers for Breakfast and Buzztonic . Never losing that touch for the basic approach though, he recorded two albums for Buddy Guy – the Grammy winning “Damn Right I Got the Blues” and the follow up “Feels Like Rain”
Watch the Tony Platt video with Tony talking about recording AC/DC’s Back in Black
