Man On The Rocks

Album: Man On The Rocks (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the title track of Mike Oldfield's 25th album. Recorded in the Bahamas, it was produced by Oldfield with Stephen Lipson (Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney) and features bassist Leland Sklar (Phil Collins, James Taylor) and drummer John Robinson (Michael Jackson, Daft Punk).
  • The genesis of the record was when Oldfield started playing Rolling Stones records, paying fresh attention to the drum clatter. "I listened to the snares," he told The Daily Telegraph. "And I started experimenting with these old blues slide guitar sections in open G tuning, which is what Keith Richards uses."
  • Oldfield tried singing the songs himself at first, before recruiting Luke Spiller from The Struts to interpret his words. "I thought: let me see if I can sing like Mick Jagger," he told The Daily Telegraph before adding that unimpressed with his efforts, he called his record company. "I asked them to recommend a rock vocalist with a really high range and I was instantly pointed toward Luke Spiller of The Struts. I went online and thought: yeah. He did a much better job of sounding like a rock star than me."
  • The title song is about addiction: "Not necessarily to drugs or alcohol," said Oldfield, "it can be to certain kinds of relationship patterns, about an addiction to failure."

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