Like I’ve done with all my previous interviews and most of my university papers, I’m writing this at 3A.M. while on the night shift. Though I love getting to know local acts, nothing before has really compared to or prepared me for writing about Gordon Raphael. He’s no stranger to Demo or even my work, having been featured in both interviews I did with Lighterless. However, the whole thing starts to look a little different when he’s the focus. Now, that’s not to say that Raphael is difficult to talk to—the producer was completely down to earth and surprisingly humble about his expansive career. Reading all about that in his vibrant 2022 memoir The World Is Going To Love This: Up From The Basement with The Strokes and asking the questions hasn’t been the hard part; it’s trying to shape them into something coherent (and excellent) that scares me. How do you write about a guy with a whole book out? Too much source material is a burden in itself, as I’m sure every grad student and miserable academic will tell you. I decided to take a different approach and ask Raphael as little about The Strokes as possible. Though he’s best known for producing their iconic debut album Is This It, there are already plenty of music journalists who have dedicated their lives to documenting everything about Julian Casablancas et al. Despite flying under the radar in most of the cities he visits, Raphael has lived the rock n’ roll dream. From playing with The Psychedelic Furs to writing a bunch of epic music and working with the hitmakers of tomorrow, there’s a lot more to him than purveyors of indie sleaze might realize.

A career in music wasn’t always in the cards for Raphael. Before finding music, he originally considered being a clown or an artist, but “with rock n’ roll and listening to records, and joining bands and going onstage, I just thought, ‘This is the most fun thing ever!’” I think every Strokes fan is glad Raphael didn’t run away with the circus. Playing everything from synths, guitar and keyboard, he threw himself into the industry head first.  Before even becoming a producer, his time playing electronic keyboard in the space rock septet Sky Cries Mary was what first enabled him to really embark on his journey as a musician. Through his five-year period with them, he was able to get a taste for the world of touring, recording and everything else that comes to mind when one pictures being a rockstar. Despite being inspired and excited by the music he was making with Sky Cries Mary, he decided to put more of his energy into his own projects. His music, both as a solo artist and in bands, was largely influenced by the places he grew up. He explains that “by coming from a New York family that moved to Seattle… I kind of became a hybrid of those two places. Seattle is more laid back, [there’s] trees and mountains and water, [but] I come from this driven, uptight, neurotic, intellectual place [New York]. Right when I was starting to write music and play in bands, that’s the core of it.” Though there’s allegiance to both places, and he continues to visit both these days, Raphael’s early years were fraught with a desire to get out of the forest and into the concrete. “Even though I loved Seattle I had to go see New York,” he says. “I needed to see Los Angeles, I wanted to see Sweden, and France.” While he says his time abroad had much to offer, whether that be the fulfillment of his youthful rock n’ roll fantasy in London or the classical appeal and great technology of Berlin, he now chooses to spend time with his family in a rural town in the North of England.

‍

Raphael has been in several bands, the music of which he’s steadily been releasing throughout the past several years. Despite his fame now, he originally struggled to find a market for his esoteric sounds: “I made these weird records of my own, and people in the music industry were like, ‘What’s that? That’s really weird, of course we can’t release that, that’s so strange, nobody will buy it!’ I was always at the mercy of some gatekeeper, some businessman telling me that my stuff was too weird, too left field, too unusual, too many genres.” He’s still maintained the excitement of a musician just starting his career, despite having many years and many records under his belt. He admits, “I look everyday to see if anybody’s listened to my music. Even though it’s a small number, it’s kind of soul-satisfying to know that people are interested in listening to the things I was making all my life.” While his music has gotten more traction since his work with The Strokes in their early days, the sounds aren’t at all comparable and it hasn’t necessarily boosted the listener count on those older tracks. “It’s a double-edged sword. [Working with The Strokes has] given me a lot of time to focus on my work and to promote my work, and to record stuff. I’ve got all the synthesizers I want,” he acknowledges, though he contests that “most normal Strokes fans, or even most members of The Strokes, if they pushed play on a Gordon Raphael song, they’d go, ‘This doesn’t sound like that! This has nothing to do with that!’ People like what they like.” Even if his music takes more influence from Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd than Guided By Voices, it still features the same tenacity that was able to elevate The Strokes to their renowned platinum status.

One of the most intriguing points of Raphael's discography comes with Absinthee, as the band worked in parallel with his journey of becoming a producer. Partnering with vocalist Anne Hadlock, the duo aimed to create music that transcended genre boundaries. The project and Raphael came as a package deal, meaning that every place he produced for also gave Absinthee a spot to record. When he got his start at a studio nicknamed Chateau Relaxo and first started working with ProTools in the late ‘90s, the learning curve of the new tech hit him hard. “I was using tape recorders and digital recorders. There was no screen,” he says. Despite those around him rallying for the software, he was adamant to stick with the way things had been: “I said, ‘Fuck you, you’re gonna watch TV while you play music?’” Eventually, after Scott Clark showed him the ropes (and endured several panicked phone calls about lost or messed up recordings), Raphael changed his tune. His method now is to combine the two mediums. “I have a digital recording method using analog gear, and once I found that, it was kind of my path. I don’t use automatic stuff,” he explains. That middle ground is a key aspect of what makes his production style so lucrative, encouraging more musicians to work with him. The next studio he produced at was the famed Transporterraum NYC, a velvet draped basement with a name referencing the original Star Trek. It was at this locale where he’d begin to enjoy a steadily rising stream of success. Before The Strokes even hit the scene, Raphael produced another band there with a similar sound: Satellites, an experimental group from Mallorca. Their debut album Our very bright darkness is an sonically important precursor to Is This It, offering important context for the latter record. His time in the studio with them was so impactful that he lists their lead singer Jordi Herrera as one of the most influential people in his life: “That guy has been doing the same thing ever since I met him 20 years ago, just singing perfect[ly], singing with the most unusual voice, the most interesting lyrics, sounds, and great songwriting.” The praise of Herrera doesn’t come lightly, given Raphael has been rubbing shoulders with the music industry’s greats since the early aughts. Another big figure for him is none other than Regina Spektor, whom he catapulted into fame by showing her music to The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. “Her abilities, her composition and singing, and piano especially, really blow me away,” explains Raphael. He’s notoriously good at spotting fresh talent, so it’s no surprise that Spektor quickly became a key figure in the New York indie scene. 

Music culture in early 2000s NYC is often dearly missed, and Raphael has been around long enough to witness some serious shifts in the way music scenes function. Though this has made a lot of connections easier for him, there’s a bit mourning associated with the old way of doing things:

“In the old days, the only thing you could do [was] xerox a picture of yourself, write a logo and then tape it on a phone pole and hope somebody walking by might take interest and call your phone number, or give you a job or something. If you wanted to see people, you had to go downtown to the club where everybody was and meet your friends and watch [their] bands. It was very physical, and it was the only game in town. If you didn’t do that, you’re basically staying home and watching crappy TV shows. The local scene was everything, it was where I learned to be audacious, and watched my friends doing movements and organizing things on stage. Nowadays, there’s the freedom where I’m not stuck in one place. The internet does a lot of connecting and communicating that wasn’t available back when I was growing up. In a sense, I’m aware of a lot of independent scenes, but there’s not a lot of media connecting it like in the old days. There’s not a lot of magazines covering all these great [acts], and people don’t pay attention to it. It’s a very different time, but luckily there’s beautiful art and music everywhere that I know about.”

I think many people can relate to what Raphael’s describing, even if all they know is how things are now. He continues to explain that sometimes this period feels like a hallucination. He muses, “A circus of characters would come into my living room and talk with me and play music. I don’t have anything like that now. Maybe someone will schedule a half hour for a coffee once every few months when they have free time. Living with other people as friends was priceless. I really miss that.” He’s quite right. To me, it seems like we’ve replaced the age old tradition of getting trashed in someone’s apartment and calling it networking with staring at our phones. Scenes still find ways to thrive, but what’s the point if it’s all from afar?

‍

Gordon Raphael is playing a big part in keeping new music fresh and alive. These days, he mostly spends his time producing for emerging acts around the world. The acclaim that comes with producing the best Strokes album is undeniable, but he says that bands rarely want to work with him for that reason alone. “Usually, the people who want to work with me are very interesting and cool. People that have kind of boring music and just want to be superstars, they don’t call me. I’m not known for that.” The acts pick him, not the other way around, but that doesn’t mean he’ll work with just anyone. It’s important that the vibes and communication are good between him and the artist, but also that their art is something special. “I really only like stuff that blows my mind. I like it when [music] punches me in the face and manhandles my brain. I’ve had that feeling since I was ten years old, and when I work with bands, I try to get that [from them],” he says. This desire is audible in his own music as well, and it’s interesting to see how that philosophy has translated into his work for other people. He’s also determined to make sure everyone he produces leaves feeling that their vision has been executed to the best of his ability. He proudly explains that “everyday I work it’s like, ‘How can I make that person’s ideas come to life?’ I’m really focused on what they want to do, on hearing their ideas, on letting them lead the way, and letting them make suggestions. I love helping them, rather than pushing them and controlling things.” It was his own experiences early on in his career that shaped these convictions: “It was a direct response [to] saving my hard-earned money and going to the studio, and some older professional guy told me that my ideas were great for home, but not for the studio. They talked me out of my plan, and they gave me more professional but less magic sounds than I was getting at home. I thought, if I’m ever a producer or an engineer, I don’t want to do that to anybody else. I don’t want to make them sorry they spent the money and [questioning] whether it could have been better.” This sentiment is one Raphael says is at the forefront of his productional doctrine.

Clearly, there’s a lot more to Gordon Raphael than meets the eye. After completing his memoir and thus sufficiently documenting all the stories he’d grown tired of retelling, he’s continued to work with bands like SAMSARA, Toronto’s own Violet Fox, Paris-based rock newcomers Chéri Chéri, and many more. Despite all my research, there’s still so much more about him and his career that I haven’t even scratched the surface of. Raphael has an excellent track record of producing quality acts, and he uses his Instagram to highlight the up-and-comers he collaborates with now. Gordon Raphael has been affecting the music scene for decades upon decades, and it's been an exciting journey to dig below the surface of his career.

‍