The biggest regret of Alan Parsons career: “We’d have conquered the world”
Producers and their arsenal of studio wizardry form an utterly essential aspect of the music industry – you can’t have a great album without great production, at the end of the day.
Still, the small-print names on the back of LP sleeves rarely receive the attention they so deserve, unless, of course, those names include Alan Parsons.
With Parsons’ resume boasting engineering work on both Abbey Road and The Dark Side of the Moon, it is safe to say that he knew his way around a studio, and by the early 1970s, he was becoming a man consistently in demand. Ultimately, though, there came a point during the mid-1970s when Parsons became frustrated with his work being underappreciated or, in the case of Pink Floyd, completely uncredited, leading to the creation of The Alan Parsons Project.
That project became the perfect place for Parsons to stretch his musical muscles, and from their 1976 debut album, the group became a beacon for symphonic prog-rock and art-rock excellence. What’s more, the project gave Parsons a chance to recruit various musicians that he had worked alongside over the years – stretching from The Hollies’ Terry Sylvester to the psychedelic hero of Arthur Brown, both of whom appeared on the band’s 1976 debut.
In other words, then, The Alan Parsons Project was akin to a kind of prog-era supergroup, with a revolving door of cult figures and incredible musicians. It wasn’t long before the musical mainstream caught on to this unlikely revolution, and albums like 1980’s The Turn of a Friendly Card fared particularly well, going platinum in the US and peaking at number 13 in the album charts.
According to Parsons himself, though, that success could have been a lot greater, were it not for one major snag: “We didn’t have a live act,” he told Classic Rock. Traditionally, of course, touring is one of the most effective acts of album promotion an artist can do, attracting audiences in towns and cities across the world to their new material. Without that, the Alan Parsons Project struggled to reach the same mass audiences as other bands.
“The only promotion that we could do was go to all the big cities in the US and play the album to the press and radio stations,” the producer recalled. “I think if I’d put a live act together, we could have conquered the world.” Parsons might not be far off in that assumption, either, looking at the level of success the group were already able to achieve without proper promotion and with a fairly niche sound.
Explaining the reasons why The Alan Parsons Project didn’t ever conjure up a live act, the songwriter continued, “It was a fear I had. What does a record producer do onstage? We discovered it was sort of unfounded – as long as I could play a few chords on guitar and do a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’, that was considered valid as a live act.”
He added, “We should have done it, but we didn’t.”
Regrets aside, The Alan Parsons Project still managed to strike upon 11 studio albums over the course of their tenure, including their final farewell on 2014’s The Sicilian Defence. Although they might not have reached the mainstream domination boasted by some of the groups Parsons worked with in the studio, their cult following within the world of prog is surely enough to sustain their relevancy for many more years.
