(jazz music chord)
- Hitmaker.
I didn't really think of myself as a Hitmaker,
but I think of my guitar
as having the sound to give any track that I play on
a better than even shot of being a hit.
(jazz guitar playing)
Of course, that's all just made up stuff,
but that's how I think of it.
("Le Freak" by Chic)
♪ One, two ♪
♪ Ah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est Chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
♪ Ah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est Chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
♪ Ah, freak out ♪
- Chic was official end of '76 going into '77.
We put out our first record in 1977.
Every single song that we put out was a hit,
and Grace Jones had become a fan of our second single.
She decided that these two new guys would be
the producers of what would've been her then, next record.
The only way that we could really understand
who she is as an artist, is we have to see her live show.
The records are one thing,
but if we saw her live, we'd really be able to understand,
and we'd be able to write for her, and write with her.
♪ Would show the way ♪
♪ Ah, freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est Chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
So when Grace called us, she says,
"What I want you to do,
is you go to the back door of Studio 54, and you tell them
that you are personal friends of Miss Grace Jones."
So we knock on the back door of Studio 54,
and the guy slammed the door in our faces and said,
"Aw, fuck off."
We banged on the door. We get his attention again.
He says, "Didn't I tell you to fuck off?"
I had that light bulb moment.
I just remember this guy going,
Aw, fuck off. Aw, fuck off.
So in my head, I'm repeating this in a loop;
Aw, fuck off. Aw, fuck off.
So, we knew we weren't gonna get into Studio 54 that night,
and we went to my apartment,
and we picked up our instruments cause we were at my house,
and we just started jamming, and I started playing,
♪ Ah, fuck off ♪
(funk rhythm guitar)
♪ Fuck Studio 54 ♪
♪ Fuck off ♪
(funk rhythm guitar)
♪ Fuck Studio 54 ♪
We liked it so much once we started jamming,
it was hooky to us and we knew that,
a bit before the hiphop era,
we certainly couldn't get "fuck off" on the radio.
So with the little writing and rewriting, we wind up with,
♪ Ah, freak out ♪
(funky rhythm guitar)
To this day, it's the biggest selling record
in the history of Atlantic Records.
♪ It's up to you, it surely can be done ♪
♪ Young and old are doing it, I'm told ♪
♪ Just one try and you too will be sold ♪
- So, Le Freak is a really cool guitar part
cause it's very much in the tradition of what I do
when I'm trying to make a guitar part special.
So the basic part is,
(plays "Le Freak" guitar riff)
But what makes it "Le Freak" is by going,
(pares it down to the intrinsic signature guitar hook)
and playing those two things in sync by going,
(plays the rhythm guitar together with the signature hook)
And believe it or not, "Le freak, c'est Chic"
didn't come in until the recording session.
Luther Vandross came in and said,
"Hey, that's a pretty big space.
Why don't you try something different there?"
And Bernard went,
"Le freak, c'est Chic",
and we just stuck it in and it worked.
♪ Freak out ♪
♪ Le freak, c'est Chic ♪
♪ Freak out ♪
(record slows to stop)
So I found this guitar, the original Hitmaker,
in 1973.
It was not white.
Since I was a Hendrix fanatic, I wanted it to be white.
So I took it back to my shop,
and I stripped it and painted it white.
Since we were a very new band,
I wanted to do something
that was a little bit more show-businessy,
so I put this
reflective pick guard on it
because the lights, when they would shine the spots at us,
I could actually take the guitar
and shine it back at the people in the audience.
And then I put these speed knobs on
because there were quite a few songs in those days
that would have (bends notes with volume knob swell)
that kind of effect (repeats string bending with swell),
and since we were a cover band mainly,
we needed to be able to do that effect.
("Let's Dance" by David Bowie)
I met Bowie at a after hours club called The Continental.
We didn't talk about rock and roll and pop records at all.
All we did was talk about jazz records, and he asked me,
would I consider being the producer of his next record?
And we went on this wonderful journey.
It was probably the most exciting journey
of what I would call pre-production, in my life.
♪ Put on your red shoes and dance the blues ♪
♪ Let's dance ♪
♪ To the song they're playin' on the radio ♪
- David said to me, in no uncertain terms,
that he wanted me to make a hit album.
Let's be very clear, a hit album,
meaning he wanted every song to be popping
like a Chic record or Sister Sledge.
He invites me over to his house in Switzerland,
and I'm lying in bed one morning,
and he burst into my room and he says,
"Nile darling, I think this is a hit."
And he starts playing this folk song,
and he was playing something that went like,
(plays guitar)
And he played this for me, and I just thought that he was
actually trying to test me to see if I was a sycophant.
I said, "Hey David, can I do an arrangement on that?"
And he said, "Yeah, I'd love to hear that."
My first iteration of it was (plays rhythm guitar).
But then I knew that he liked jazz, so right away,
I went to a minor 13 chord (plays m13 chord rhythm).
And I said, that's cool.
But for some reason it sounded a little dark to me.
(plays proto riff for "Let's Dance")
Then I just decided,
"Hey, what if I moved it up a half step?"
(plays "Let's Dance" riff up a half step)
It sounded really bright, and I was like, digging that.
Then I said, hell, let me move the whole thing up an octave.
I also started to chuck, so I went,
(plays "Let's Dance" signature rhythm guitar)
When we go into the studio and we count it off,
within a few seconds that groove kicks in,
and I knew I had it.
Doesn't quite sound like "Let's Dance" at the beginning
cause David is singing what he's sang in my bedroom.
But by the end, now he's starting to get into the groove
and he's starting to rewrite and change it.
And finally he starts laughing and he goes,
"All right, all right," he's like convinced,
"I got it. It works, it's cool."
♪ ...flower ♪
("Let's Dance" instrumental break)
♪ Let's dance ♪
David and I happened to walk into the control room
when Bob Clearmountain was setting up the various delays
for the various things that he would throw to,
and he had somehow routed the guitar
through one of those slap backs.
At that time that he did that there were other delays open,
so what we wound up having
was a multi tap delay thing going on.
And David and I heard that and went,
"Whoa, what the hell is that?"
So then I just played simply (plays three staccato chords)
and then let the delays do all the work.
And what was cool about it was by playing all up strokes,
(plays Bm11 chord beginning of "Let's Dance")
it made the voice leading very strong,
(plays B flat minor 6 chord rhythm)
We both heard it and said to Bob, "Leave it like that,"
and Bob looks us like we were crazy.
And we're like, "No, that's happening."
It's sort of doing what Nile does
without Nile having to do it.
("Let's Dance" instrumental break)
People call me to collaborate,
and the one thing that I feel really confident about
is that I'm never without a musical idea.
It could be anything.
I always believe that I have a musical element to add
to whatever I'm called for.
("Get Lucky" by Daft Punk)
I met Daft Punk shortly after Bernard died,
and they came with their first album.
We met at their listening party in New York,
and they pulled me aside and they said
that they quietly dedicate this album to Bernard Edwards.
I didn't realize how much they loved Chic
until I finally went and bought the album and opened it up,
and I see a Chic record laying on the floor in the gatefold.
I went, "Oh, okay, I get it now."
("Get Lucky" by Daft Punk)
♪ Ah ♪
♪ The force from the beginning, hm, love ♪
- And they said, "Nile, we're in town.
We'd like to come to your apartment
and play some demos for you."
They come to my apartment,
and they explain the concept of the album to me.
They want to do a record as if the internet never existed.
And I knew what that meant. They wanted to do this.
They wanted to do one of these records.
And I said, "Okay, cool,
you don't have to play me any demos."
And they said, "Well, no,
we want you to hear where we're coming from."
And I said, "No, I don't want to hear demos.
I make records
on the spot."
As a studio musician,
I don't know what song I'm gonna play before I get there.
But when I get there, what I try and do
is come up with the most clever part as quickly as possible
because we started out like this,
and you had to do records fast.
You had to come up with clever parts fast,
that were meaningful, they had to groove with everybody.
So I get to the studio, they play the first song.
They played the song, I said,
"Now, turn everybody off except for the drummer,
and just let me play."
I wrote out the chart and I played to the drummer,
and I said, "That's the groove to me."
The basic part is probably playing something like,
(plays "Get Lucky" rhythm riff)
and then the next one is probably playing something like,
(plays another layer of rhythm guitar chords)
And then there's another one that's going,
(plays another layer of rhythm guitar)
And that's actually where the chorus came from,
(plays melodic hook) That's where "Get Lucky" comes from.
Cause the song wasn't called "Get Lucky" when I played it,
it was just, whatever, "Track Number Five," or something.
♪ We're up on night to get lucky ♪
♪ She's up all night 'til the sun ♪
♪ I'm up all night to get some ♪
♪ She's up all night for good fun ♪
♪ I'm up all night to get lucky ♪
♪ We're up all night 'til the sun ♪
♪ We're up all night to get some ♪
♪ We're up all night for good fun ♪
♪ We're up all night to get lucky ♪
- I grew up never, ever thinking
that my name would be on a model of a guitar,
and that my sound would represent a model of a guitar,
and that the way that I chose to set up
and design it for my personal use,
that it could mean something to someone else.
Fender's become, in my mind,
the great workhorse guitar.
When I switched to a Strat my world changed.
It was as if the guitar found me.
It's really super versatile,
and they can do a classical session, a jazz session.
It's just my baby. It just does whatever I need it to do.
What's really interesting is that
the Hitmaker is the only Strat that I've ever had
that sounds like that.
Everybody who's playing a Strat,
their Strats have a certain vibe.
My Start plays, I don't know how to explain it.
If you can think that I would've bought
more than 200 of these things in my life trying to find one,
and finally, the only way I could find another one
was Fender had to make it.
♪ We're up all night to get some ♪
♪ We're up all night for good fun ♪
♪ We're up all night to get lucky ♪