Paul Epworth and Ghost Stories

[TheLostColdplayer]

Hi guys!

I've always been curious about Epworth's role during the production of Ghost Stories because (as far as I know) he has never been mentioned in interviews with the band from that period. Usually they discuss their relationship with producers, but not in this case. He is not even featured in the Making of Ghost Stories documentary.

So I wonder if you know anything about that. Here's all I managed to discover. In this interview Epworth discusses his work with several artists and briefly mentions Coldplay, saying they did GS mostly by themselves but he advised them to use synthetic drums instead of acoustic ones.

Don't get me wrong, I really like GS (it's probably my 3rd or 4th fav CP album), but if there is something that I really struggle to connect with is the drum machine, which sounds so lifeless to me, at least on certain tracks. If that's his main contribution to the record it might not be entirely positive. Obviously that's just my opinion!

What do you think?

[CP-EST]

He hasn't been mentioned much indeed. I remember them mentioning him a few times in interviews though, but can't remember which interviews these were. His role seemed be advising them to get the overall sound of the record right. The use of synthetic percussion opens up more space and makes songs sound more sparse, which they were trying to achieve in Ghost Stories.

I happen to think Ghost Stories is their best sounding record overall. Most of the songs sound very delicate and these choices in production actually seem key part for achieving this. Level of detail in percussion parts is just amazing on this record and I think it would have been difficult to get it right with acoustic drums. It's sonically a very beautiful and layered album, a one for audiophiles.