Richard Batchens

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Richard Batchens is an Australian record producer and recording engineer. He was the main in-house producer for the Australian recording company Festival Records in the early-mid 1970s and was one of the most prominent and successful producers of the era.

His work includes many major releases on Festival's Infinity Records label (not affiliated with the U.S. based MCA Records subsidiary label also called Infinity Records.) He worked on all the early albums and singles for Sherbet, Australia's most successful pop band of the early-mid 1970s, and the first five LPs by renowned singer-songwriter Richard Clapton.^[1]

He also produced some of the early Cold Chisel material, including the single "Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye)" and their second album Breakfast at Sweethearts.

1 Career
2 KNOWN PRODUCTION/ENGINEERING CREDITS:
3 References

[edit] Career

Black Feather: -- producer, At the Mountains of Madness (1971) LP and "Seasons of Change" single. Blackfeather's LP was recorded in late 1970 and released on Festival's new Infinity imprint in Jan. 1971, and featured guest appearances by two members of Fraternity, Bon Scott on recorder and percussion and John Bissett on keyboards. The LP reached #7 in the Australian national charts. The classic track "Seasons of Change" (originally written by Robinson for Fratenity) proved to be one of the group's most memorable tracks and became a national Top 20 hit when released (against the band's wishes) as a single. This track also crops up on the Raven's Golden Miles CD compilation in 1994 along with the album track "Long Legged Lovely".^[2]

Richard Clapton: -- produced, engineered and mixed the soundtrack album Highway One (1976, Festival Records)^[3].

Cold Chisel:-- Cold Chisel's first LP had been produced by the renowned ABC producer-engineer Keith Walker (who engineered live concert recordings and broadcasts for the ABC rock station Double Jay), but for their second album their record company decided to put the band in the hands of a 'real' producer. Richard Batchens was the hot name at the time. He was reportedly not all that keen on the band's individual performances in the studio and made them do things over and over. In the end he smoothed out the rough edges, but the band has said they felt they also lost some of the life, while at the same time, the more sophisticated approach tended to highlight the quality of the songs.^[4] The band had their reservations, but they were reasonably happy with the results, and Breakfast At Sweethearts proved to be their commercial breakthrough, turning Cold Chisel into platinum selling superstars. After attempting to record a follow-up single with Batchens, Cold Chisel decided to record the next album (East) with Mark Opitz.

[edit] KNOWN PRODUCTION/ENGINEERING CREDITS:

[edit] Blackfeather

1971 At the Mountain of Madness [Infinity/Festival L34159]

Co-produced by John Robinson

[edit] Split Enz

1975 - Mental Notes (Mushroom Records)

- engineer

[edit] Richard Clapton

1973 - Prussian Blue (Infinity/Festival L 34956)

1975 - Girls on the Avenue (Infinity/Festival L 35508)

1976 - Highway One soundtrack (Festival Records) ^[5]

1977 - Goodbye Tiger (Festival Records) - production, mixing ^[6]

[edit] Sherbet

1972 - Time Change... A Natural Progression (Infinity/Festival L34725 LP, D20018 CD

1973 - On With the Show (Infinity/Festival L35007 LP, D20020 CD)

1974 - Slipstream (Infinity/Festival L35275 LP) - co-credit with Sherbet

1974 - In Concert (Infinity/Festival L35443 LP)

1975 - Life... Is For Living (Infinity/Festival L35652 LP)

^[7]

[edit] Cold Chisel

1977 - You're Thirteen, You're Beautiful, and You're Mine - live EP

Recorded live at the Regent Theatre, Sydney, 1977. Mixed at Albert Studios, Sydney, Australia. Produced by Keith Walker. Consultant Producer:, Richard Batchens.