One of the most unexpected releases for many a year was N-Soul's recent remix album of Jesus Music legend LARRY NORMAN. Mike Rimmer spoke at length to the man who almost single handedly invented Christian rock music.

How did you approach it? "We didn't have any of the music at all, and to tell the truth I hadn't even heard the song before. We had absolutely no idea what it sounded like! That may be one of the reasons why it came out so strange, because we didn't have a point of reference. First we got the vocals and I spent several days trying to find the rhythm. With the vocals the way they were it was very hard to find what kind of rhythm Larry was singing it! We tried different approaches to the song. I had been listening to a lot of 'Goldie' which has a lot of break beating dubbed stuff. I thought t would be interesting to do something like that too. I was watching the X Files at the time because I'm a big fan! So we just played up on the UFO vibe. We definitely had sci-fi influences! We tried to take the song and make something completely different that wouldn't resemble the original, except for the vocals! I didn't quite mean for it to stick out but I guess that's not a bad thing."

JOEY BELVILLE
Jest known for his work under the band name Echoing Green (most famous song "Defend Your Joy"). Joey remixed "Sweet Songs Of Salvation".
Getting started: "They gave me the vocal tracks, some of the drums and bass and then he sent me the whole track so that I could listen to it. At the beginning of the song you hear old drum and bass and that's from the actual song. I sampled that and put it in and threw a hard beat on top of it. The remix is a little bit aggressive for us. I usually don't do full on techno stuff and that song is a very straightforward dance song. But it was a lot of fun! We recorded the song in a friend's bedroom! It took us about two nights."
Joey on Larry: "I think it's definitely because of the message. He pretty much invented Christian music. The songs are all truths. They're timeless in the same way that the Bible is timeless. The whole remix album is just updating it for kids in this generation who don't enjoy the classic rock sound."

BRIAN HARDIN
A producer and recording artist, he produced the debut album by Nouveaux - 'Beginnings'. His album 'Wonder In Blue' was released by N-Soul. Brian remixed "I Wish We'd All Been Ready".
Job specification from Scott Blackwell: "He told me that he wanted it to be a little loopy! The more I got into the song the more I really wanted to stay true to the lyric instead of making it a really musical piece. Of all the songs Larry's ever done that one's a classic and I didn't want to butcher it. It was eerie to be using a vocal from 20 years ago on a brand new track."
Approach: "All I had to go with was the original vocal and I wanted to somehow be able to stay true to his vocals and recapture some of the retro vibe. I didn't want to make it a techno beat, so I kept the live drums and the acoustic instruments."
Brian on Larry: "I've admired his music for a long time. I met him before I made the track and spent some time with him. He's quiet and very intense. He's amazingly creative. Regardless of how old he is, he manages to stay as close to the edge as he can."

PAUL DEXTER
Owns a recording studio in California and has worked on a lot of Scott Blackwell's projects, eg, Gina, Limit X and Private Boys. Paul remixed "God Part 3" and "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music".
Approach: "Scott asked us to do them rocky with live drums and some grungy guitar. So we did! It's a really simple three-piece power combo with Larry's vocals on top. It was a lot of fun because Scott said for us to go for it, make it really heavy and pound away, but I don't think he quite thought we would. He liked it though."
The musicians: "All the power comes from Frank Sandoval's guitar! The drum player Steve Latination, who plays with Clash Of Cymbals, did a great job too pounding away. He's the hardest hitting drummer we could find. I played bass so that's the extent of the three parts."
Challenges: "Remixing is something I've never really done. I very loosely call these songs remixes, but technically they are. I'm into all the old analogue equipment. I have to use a lot of computers sometimes - in this case we had to transfer a load of vocals up to the tape and drop them in over the music. All of this material was done without a click so the vocals would wander all over as did all the instruments. But we had it easier than the rest of them because we were only using vocals."