• What is an e-riff?
• Do you do preproduction meetings?
• Can you write your own horn arrangements, even if I'm not sure what I want?
• Can you work things out on the spot - without music?
• Can you change your arrangement if I don't like some/all of it?
• Can you play other people's arrangements from charts or keyboard guides?
• ' The Kick Horns guys are really on top of my thing' - Dr John
• Can you work in budget studios?
• I'm not based in the UK. Can you recommend or provide recording facilities?
• What instruments do you play?
• How much do you charge?
• Do you play solos?
• Can you travel to other countries to record?

Riff, as in a short musical phrase which can be repeated very effectively, and e- as in transmitted on the web.
Technology has led to many different ways of recording music and making songs...most notably cutting and pasting ideas together and sculpting "found sounds" or samples.
Drum loops and sample cds abound. We'd like to provide something different, a half way house between studio recording and ready made sample, where our creativity sparks off yours to make an individual, custom, made to measure, sample.
Go to e-riffs to check it out.

 
Do you do preproduction meetings?

Often one of us will meet up with the artist and/or producer a few days before the session to get a vibe and talk about what's needed and where: lines, instrumentation, style and so on. Other times, a phone call and a CD of the track (maybe with guide horn parts) are all that's needed. Then we'll do some homework and come into the studio with - we hope - the definitive horn arrangement for your song. Of course, sometimes there are changes to be made, or a new idea may materialise, and then we'll work on things in the studio until the horns are right.

 
Can you write your own horn arrangements, even if I'm not sure what I want?

We are very experienced arrangers, and love the opportunity for creative input. So if someone says no more than “put some horns on this song”, we can always come up with ideas. Or they might be more specific: “we want something a bit Motown on this... a big intro and some chords on the chorus”. Perhaps they have one hook-line for brass they've lived with as part of the song, but aren't sure what other horn parts might be appropriate; we can take that starting-point and develop a sympathetic arrangement. We're happy to give the best account we can of the artist's ideas, improving things where desired, or leaving well alone. In any case, the point is not 'don't the horns sound great?' but 'what a great song.'

 
Can you work things out on the spot - without music?

Some people like the spontaneity of having us turn up completely unprepared, constructing parts on the spot. With the Stereo MC's, for example, Nick might play us a riff sampled from their vinyl collection, or Rob might whisper-sing a line along with a groove. We'll find a way to play it, record it, and then they fly it into the album as they want. Similarly, recording Jamiroquai's Synkronized, we worked parts out from lines that Jay Kay sang to us in the control room.
On Sinner's Prayer (Eric Clapton's From the Cradle album), Eric came into the studio with the Ray Charles version of the song. The whole band listened to it a few times in the control room, then went through to the studio and recorded it with live vocal and guitar in maybe three takes. No time to write any dots...
So yes, sometimes we record without music, but usually we find writing things down helps us to focus on the details: phrasing, dynamics etc. When we are playing live, we write charts for rehearsal, but like to work without music on stage.

 
Can you change your arrangement if I don't like some/all of it?

Yes, we're not at all precious about our ideas if you're hearing things differently. In fact, we enjoy the way things can develop collaboratively in the studio between producer, artist and musicians; at best like a glorious melting pot of creative imaginations that produces a result you couldn't achieve any other way.
When working on David Gilmour's Blue Light we turned up at the studio with a coherent horn arrangement and some back-up ideas. Producer Bob Ezrin rearranged our phrases like pieces of a jigsaw, using substantial chunks but changing the order. Then he took our bridge idea (turned upside down), added triplet accents across the beat... and hey presto, job done.

 
Can you play other people's arrangements from charts or keyboard guides?

We sometimes do TV, film or pop sessions where other people have written the arrangements, and we are happy to read charts provided. At the same time we can offer input into phrasing, voicings and so on to get the best from those charts. We have worked this way with producer Dieter Falk, for example, on albums for Roger Chapman and German band Pur. Dieter always comes in with clear, fully realised ideas that are great to play. But sometimes a detail - replacing a long note with a short one, or adding a fall to the end of an accent - can really bring those ideas to life.
If the artist or arranger prefers using guide keyboard parts to show the ideas, we will usually try to listen to the guides in advance so that we arrive at the session ready to play. We can obviously work things out in the studio, but a bit of preparatory homework can save a lot of time.

 
'The Kick Horns guys are really on top of my thing' - Dr John

On the sessions for Dr John's Anutha Zone we worked different ways on different days. Producer John Leckie had so many different collaborators to juggle - Paul Weller coming in one day, Supergrass or Spiritualized another - that our first session came at short notice. The four of us (Roddy, Simon, Tim, with trombonist Annie Whitehead) stood around the piano in Abbey Road Studio 2 as Mac (Dr John) showed us the parts for Look Out - already perfectly voiced in four-part chordings for trumpet, tenor, trombone and baritone. As the track played in our headphones, he cued us in and out: all done in a couple of takes, then on to Voices in My Head.
Mac had to go back to New York before we could work on the other tracks, so he left us with rough mixes and a clear idea of what was needed. Tim scored out the riffs for Party Hellfire, while Simon (a long-time Dr John fan) took home sketched-out piano guides for Sweet Home New Orleans and arranged them into a suitably epic conclusion to a wonderful record.

 
Can you work in budget studios?

Great as Abbey Road and Olympic are, we don't always work in legendary or state-of-the-art or expensive studios. We're keen to stay in contact with new talent, which can mean working within tight budgets. The first time we met Blur, to record Popscene, was in a dingy basement off the Tottenham Court Road. The Groove Armada sessions happened in an unglamorous business development in north London. What we like is a good-sounding room and good microphones - ideally Neumanns. Sometimes expensive studios with complicated equipment mysteriously fail to deliver soundwise; while simple direct recording in an OK room, on the other hand, can sometimes sound brilliant. One of the best recordings of Roddy's trumpet was achieved in a cramped home studio, using a Neumann U87 through an Avalon compressor. It sounded wonderful. Our own studio, The Live Room, with maple floor and high ceiling, is a wonderful-sounding space for acoustic instruments.

 
I'm not based in the UK. Can you recommend or provide recording facilities?

We have a pretty good working knowledge of British studios and are quite happy to make some calls to locate a suitable studio and/or engineer for your budget. We also have our own good quality recording facility The Live Room, meaning we can achieve professional results from home.
For example, some years ago Chicane's Nick Bracegirdle was doing a demo of a new song for Tom Jones and wanted a particular horn sound. Simon voiced it out and we tracked it up, using Neumann U87 and Shure SM7 microphones, into a stereo pair of big, fat, slightly phasey 80s-style horns: a custom-made sample.
We have done sessions from home for clients all over the world, who have emailed us backing tracks as mp3s. We have then recorded the horns at The Live Room, mixed them to a stereo pair and sent back AIFF files on cd all ready to fly in; also with a rough mix of the horns inside the backing track, to give an immediate sense of how they work.
In this way it's possible, wherever you are in the world, to put the Kick Horns on your track. Please email info@kickhorns.com for more information.

 
What instruments do you play?

The original team, together since 1983, comprises two saxes and trumpet:

 
How much do you charge?

We like to give a clear budget for a job before starting, which will depend on the time we expect things to take and the number of players. Once we've had a preliminary chat about the music with the producer and/or artist we are in a position to give a clear price.

 
Do you play solos?

Check out Kick Horns' The Other Foot: Tim's tenor on tracks 3, 4, and 9; Simon's alto on 8 and 10; Roddy's trumpet on 2 and 6; Annie's trombone on 2, 5 and 10. And hear Roddy with the Waterboys on Whole of the Moon and Don't Bang the Drum.

 
Can you travel to other countries to record?

We have recorded several albums in France and Germany. Our instruments are mostly hand-luggage.

Have horns, will travel...