In a new appearance on The Metal Voice (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), the producer Max Norman, known for his work with Ozzy Osbourne y Megadeth, has recalled the process of recording the debut album of the Prince of Darkness, ‘Blizzard Of Ozz’ (1980).
The process began, however, with another producer, Chris Tsangarides (Judas Priest, Gary Moore, Thin Lizzy), who ended up being fired by Ozzy, given the unsatisfactory results he was getting from the recording. Norman, then, was hired as an engineer and ended up producing the album, despite not appearing in the album’s credits.
“I love Chris Tasangarides, he’s a lovely guy. However, one of the mistakes he made was that, under the control room – he thinks we were in a not very large 16th century barn – there was a room made of stone, like cement ”.
“He was only about 2.1 meters tall, and Chris made the mistake of mounting the drums there. I tried to explain that the room was too small, and that everything was going to sound bad. That is exactly what happened. ”
“I tried to explain it to Chris, but he wanted to do what he had in mind, so I left his ball to him. The truth is that I felt that what we were recording sounded very bad, so I said to him, ‘Man, you should go to the studio and talk to the boys man to man.’
“He told me it was a good idea. So he went over there and I closed the door. I turned off the headphones and started changing the balance and recording parameters while they weren’t listening, trying to make it sound as good as possible. So the band went to the control room and listened to it. ”
“We did that for four or five days, but Chris wasn’t getting it. Normally, I take stock of all the instruments and, once established, I don’t change things too much. What I was trying to do was to improve the balance and improve it a little ”.
“Chris, however, comes from a different school and would turn all the faders down, everything to zero and then build everything from scratch quickly. And, to me, that’s like: ‘You learned how it sounded good, you’ve loaded all the parameters and now you want to recreate what you had done.’ I wouldn’t work like that ”.
“People can do it and it is simply a different way of working, but when five days passed, I said to myself: ‘I am not going to continue doing this because they are not understanding it, they are not seeing how to continue with this project” .
“So, in the end, I stopped changing the parameters when the band came in to listen to what they had recorded and they all stared at each other, there were many raised eyebrows. Eventually they ended up saying, ‘Look Chris, this isn’t working’ and all that stuff. ”
“So Ozzy called me from the home of Tony Andrews, Frank Andrews’s brother, which was north of the studio and was walkable. The thing is, Ozzy calls me and says, ‘Come here, I want to talk to you.’ So I went and he yells at me, ‘Man! Uncle! What the fuck? Man, that kid is fucking fired, can you do it? ‘ I said yes and that was it ”.
Shortly after, later in the talk, Max Norman defended Chris, despite his mistake, against his dismissal by Ozzy:
“Well, they have fired me too. And I’ve been sued a couple of times. It’s a shame, but those things happen. You keep going. Everyone gets fired at some point, but they all get over it and you get used to it ”.
“You do the best you can, and if people can’t agree, then you have to turn the page. At the time I felt bad, but with Chris, it just wasn’t working. ”
“Sometimes things don’t fit together and if they don’t, you’d better walk away. That’s basically what happened there “
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