Starsailor frontman James Walsh has lifted the lid on his bizarre and unsettling experience working with disgraced producer Phil Spector — claiming the Wall of Sound pioneer “wore a different wig every day” during their studio sessions.
Spector, once hailed as one of music’s most influential hitmakers, worked with Starsailor in 2002 in what proved to be his final production work.
The sessions produced two songs Silence Is Easy and White Dove, which ended up on the British band’s second studio album Silence Is Easy.
On February 3, 2003, Spector shot and killed actress Lana Clarkson at his mansion, the Pyrenees Castle, in Alhambra, California. He was eventually convicted of her murder in the second degree in 2009 and was sentenced to 19 years to life in prison. He died in January 2021 aged 81 from complications related to COVID-19.
Walsh reflected on the band’s time with Spector while making their 2003 LP, admitting the collaboration swung wildly between creative highs and deeply uncomfortable lows.
In an interview with ContactMusic.com, Walsh said: “It was mixed, really, to be honest. Initially, we did a trial week with him because the label was a bit cautious because he hadn’t worked with anybody for so long. They obviously saw it as a big opportunity but they were like, ‘We need to see if he’s still got it.’ That initial week was really productive … Then we agreed to reconvene to finish the album but something wasn’t right when we got back together, Phil was quite hard to communicate with and he was on a lot of medication. It got to a point where it was unworkable.”
When asked whether Spector displayed any erratic or threatening behaviour in the studio, Walsh said the band didn’t witness anything violent — but they did see some undeniably strange things.
He shared: “It was more so that he was distant and uncommunicative.
“The only eccentric thing we saw him do was wear a different wig every day, which could be quite distracting and strange! But we didn’t see any kind of anger or anything like that from him. We recorded in London so there weren’t any firearms around.”
Walsh said the band was stunned when news later broke that Clarkson had been shot dead at Spector’s home.
He said: “There’s no point pussy-footing around it. It was horrific.”
Despite Spector’s conviction, Walsh is surprised by how often the producer’s work is played on the radio and that he has not been cancelled like other artists who have been convicted of horrific crimes.
He said: “It’s mad to me how many of his songs are still played … I guess people are still able to separate the art from the person producing it.”
However, he insisted it would be unfair to “penalise” the vocalists who helped make those records iconic.
He said: “It’s interesting because Spector was a super-producer — he’s more famous than some of the artists he produced. Like that album A Christmas Gift for You is called Phil Spector’s Christmas Album.”
Walsh was speaking to promote his latest solo LP, It’s All Happening, which is out now on all streaming platforms and available to buy on CD and vinyl.
