Air’s Sexy Boy is an undisputed classic and it’s great to hear that one of its creators, the band’s Nicolas Godin, realised as much even during the recording process. “This is going to be a big song… I could see success… I could see millions of albums… I could see my dream as a child coming true,” he gushes.
The new revelations come courtesy of the Tape Notes Podcast who’ve pinned down one elusive half of the band, who, alongside bandmate Jean-Benoît Dunckel, created one of the most defining tracks of the ’90s.
Going in deep to show and explain the gear being used (and how they used it), Godin proves to be the kind of gear hoarder and retro-tech head you always suspected he was, going from the track’s basic inception through each of the defining moments that made it something special.
The track’s distinctive, buzzing bass for example? Ah, that’s simple. It’s a Minimoog… Through a talkbox. Obviously.
“We used to have a talkbox. People thought it was vocoders, but it was talkbox,” explains Godin of the mysterious (and just a little prehistoric) method of blasting a sound down a rubber tube into the mouth of the player, allowing them to physically shape the sound and imbue the synthetic with a (creepy?) modulating human element. “Around The World by Daft Punk is talkbox,” Godin explains. “It’s not a vocoder.”
And the talkbox isn’t just on Sexy Boy’s bass… “I do this all the time,” says Godin. “I put in a pad and I go…” as he proceeds to demonstrate the wobbling wah-wah sound of the track’s organ pad. “So you can think it’s a wah-wah… But it’s a talkbox,” he says.
“A lot of sounds are going through the guitar amp – we only had one guitar amp, a Peavey Classic 50. To give the sound some texture we put it in the guitar amp,” says Godin. “We never recorded in line, we always go to the amp.”
“We weren’t recording in a studio. We were recording in my bedroom. Like Daft Punk. Like a lot of bands of that era.”
And what about the track’s famous “Sexy boy-oy…” sung vocal line?
“I was on my couch watching TV and I had a melody,” Godin explains. “I got off the couch and I played it on the Solina String Ensemble.”
But Godin wasn’t finished there.
“It’s a speaker that turns very fast…”
“After we got our record deal, the record company offered us the chance to go to a real studio to make the real recordings. They had this Hammond organ and there was a pedal. I asked the engineer and he explained it was a Leslie and you can put something into it. It’s a speaker that turns very fast.
“I said ‘use that pedal’ and he said ‘really?’ and I took the vocal ‘sexy boy’ and I sampled it in my Akai S1000 and put it into a jack into the amp and the Leslie and suddenly I heard the sound of the vocals and the Leslie… We all looked at each other and were like – ‘Wow, that’s changed everything’,” he remembers.
Trust Godin to try a Leslie – the box traditionally used for adding wobble and swirl to the otherwise rather dull Hammond organ – on the lead vocal… But it’s an unmistakable effect that created perhaps the track’s most signature sound.
“So we bring back the track to the beginning and we record. And each chorus I was pressing Enter on the S1000 (to play it back). And each time I pressed Enter I saw my life changing. Each time I was pushing with a finger – I could see success!
“I said ‘My god, my life will never be the same anymore. Just because I saw that pedal in the studio.”
You can enjoy the full interview (with more gear revelations) on the Tape Notes Patreon here.
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