Supertramp saxophonist John Helliwell turns 74 today (February 15th). His solo on “The Logical Song” was recorded in an illogical location.
They were recording the album Breakfast in America and the guitar, piano and drums were being recorded in different parts of the, isolated from each other with baffles. His saxophone was so loud, though, that he need to be in a different room. He reveals where that turned out to be.
“When we were recording the backing tracks, we didn’t want the sound of the sax to spill onto the drum mics, in case the sax wasn’t good and the drum was good and we wanted to keep it or whatever. So the nearest place was the bathroom. So I sat on the toilet there, with a copy of Playboy in my left hand and my sax in my right hand and we did the takes there. In fact, the take that turned out to be the real good backing track was the one with the sax solo you hear on it. So I must’ve got the inspiration even through the walls, even sitting on the toilet.”
