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RECORD PRODUCERS can create their own sound a la Phil Spector or do their utmost to enable artists to shine like George Martin with the Beatles. The Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn, often called the "king" of heavy metal producers or "the schoolteacher" for his focused, methodical approach, belonged to the enabling school. "My job is to help a band create the album they want to make," he told interviewers.
In a rich and varied career spanning over 25 years, Fairbairn switched from playing with the band Prism to producing some of the defining multi- million-selling rock records of the Eighties and Nineties by Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, the Cranberries, INXS, Kiss and Van Halen.
Born in Vancouver in 1949, Fairbairn was a gifted child and took piano and trumpet lessons. While at school, he formed his first rhythm 'n' blues band, the Spectres, and met the promoter Bruce Allen, who played an important part in his later career.
By 1975, Fairbairn was fronting a new group, Sunshyne, without much success and approached the songwriter Jim Vallance (now more famous as Bryan Adams's writing partner and sometime producer). The two joined forces in an outfit renamed Stanley Screamer and cut four tracks which eventually got them a deal with GRT Records in Canada.
A natural move would have been for the pair to produce their first album together but Vallance backed out and Fairbairn took over the group and renamed it Prism. Between 1977 and 1982, Prism recorded five albums and toured extensively. Frustrated at not making more inroads into the American market, Prism broke up and Fairbairn hooked up again with Bruce Allen, the Vancouver manager who masterminded his switch to full-time producer.
Regulations increasing local content on Canadian radio had been introduced, giving a boost to the country's record industry. Fairbairn worked with acts such as Strange Advance, Honeymoon Suite...