MusicRadar

Why is Steve Lillywhite smiling? Hey, if you had his CV, you'd be one happy camper, too!

Over the course of his three-decade-plus career, producer Steve Lillywhite has been the boardsman behind groundbreaking albums by the likes of Peter Gabriel, Dave Matthews Band, Morrissey, XTC and dozens more. But it's his long association with U2 (he produced their debut, Boy, as well as other seminal works for the Irish superstars) that has brought him his highest acclaim.

And so it came as no surprise when Bono and The Edge, writers of the music - and, in many ways, the creative engines - for the much-troubled, enormously expensive Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, turned to the man who helped define U2's early sound to help them tweak the songs and helm the CD of the show.

"There were so many problems at first, as everybody well knows," says the affable Lillywhite. "[Original director] Julie Taymor left and other people came in [new director Philip William McKinley and writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa], and then Bono and Edge started writing some new songs. I felt like a babe in the woods in many ways, because usually I have a sense of what kind of record we're going to make. Working on a musical and making this album was a whole world of new for me. In the end, though, it was amazing, and I think the results speak for themselves."

That they do. Performed mostly by lead actors Reeve Carney (who is backed by his real-life band, Carney) and Jennifer Damiano, with Bono and The Edge making scant but vital appearances, the numbers on Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark rock with authentic swagger. Even the ballads manage to land an arrow in one's heart without coming off as mawkish or smacking of "Broadway-itis." While traces of the U2 sound are noticeable throughout (and perhaps unavoidable), the score finds Bono, Edge and Lillywhite exploring previously uncharted territory - and winning big-time.

MusicRadar spoke with Steve Lillywhite days after the musical's opening (check out our review of the show and CD here). Charming, witty and remarkably candid, the mega producer gave us the scoop on his maiden plunge into the Great White Way.

How exactly did you get involved with Spider-Man?

"I got a call from Bono saying, 'I want you to see a performance of this show.' So I went, and during the intermission we went to a room in the theater to talk. 'It doesn't sound very good, Bono,' I told him. 'No, you're right!' he said. 'These musicians are fantastic, but something isn't translating.' He was kind of annoyed, really, because he and Edge had spent so much time and effort into writing the music. Bono knew there were things that had to be fixed, but he couldn't put his finger on what they were.

"My first job was to try and make sense of the sound. Part of it had to do with the arrangements, which were very dense. But then there was the actual sound equipment, as well. Because this was a Broadway theater, you know? It wasn't a rock concert. So we got some new equipment in, then moved musicians around and did some cosmetic changes.

"We didn't have a lot of time. Juliet was getting pretty fraught with wanting to make changes but not being able to. She was so close to it, and as Bono has said, she got to a point where she just couldn't 'see it' anymore. My job was to come in with fresh ears and bring it home – as I've done on a few U2 records that I didn't produce all the way through."

Some of the players are from Reeve Carney's band.

"That's right. His band is the musical nucleus of Spider-Man. But then there's two other guitar players, another bass player, a percussionist, a hammered dulcimer player, some violinists… There's 19 musicians altogether. It's a lot of people to corral and, you know, get on the same page."

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