It’s produced by Flood and mixed by François Kevorkian, which was a brilliant combination, I’m still very proud of that. François had just mixed Kraftwerk’s Electric Cafe and I also knew him because he had done some remixes for us. Flood I’d worked with a lot before; he produced Erasure, Nick Cave, Fad Gadget, and he was a mate. I just thought it needed another perspective and Flood is technically very good, very musical, and very open. He’s not one of these, “This is the way it has to be.” It’s more like, “How can we do it differently?” He was in sync with the band’s mentality—and my own.
We did “Personal Jesus” first in Milan—that track had to get done early; we did it as a kind of experiment. It was a great song from the beginning. There was a bit of discussion amongst the band about whether it should be the first track. For me, that was definitely the track, there was no question about it. Firstly, because it was a bit controversial, secondly because it was really different from anything they’d done before, with that bluesy feel. I think some of the band were a bit nervous about the lyrics and how that might go down, but that was the choice.
“Enjoy the Silence” was originally a slow track, a ballad almost, as a demo but I think Alan and Flood really believed that there was something else to get out of that track as an uptempo number. Martin was definitely against the idea because it was his song and that’s how he’d heard it, but he said, “Okay, you do it and we’ll see.” I remember coming to visit them in the studio and Fletch and Martin being very excited, saying, “Dan, we’ve got to play you this track!” We went to one of the little rooms to the side of the studio, they played me “Enjoy the Silence”, which was half-finished and I just went, “This is going to be huge.” It was just a perfect pop song, absolutely great. This was the version, by the way, that Martin had written and Alan and Flood had worked on to make it what it was.
Then François mixed the record in London—he’s a great guy, I love him, and he’s one of the most intense people I know. He would work for 18 hours a day and I think he got through at least three different engineers because they couldn’t take it. He’s so obsessive and so brilliant, and made a great record in Violator.
The only thing about that was that, while the record was great, I wasn’t happy with “Enjoy the Silence” as it was. I had real demo-itis about it. I’d heard this rough version which they’d done, and in my head, that’s how it had to sound. So I said, “Look, I love the album, but I’m not feeling the way “Enjoy the Silence” is at the moment. Can I go off and mix it with somebody else just to try it?” So, I went off with a guy called Phil Legg, who was an engineer I’d worked with, and did it the way I’d always heard it. I think they were so burned out by the end—it took a long time making that record—that they said, “Okay, whatever you say,” and they used that version.a
