Richard Batchens

Richard Batchens worked in Sydney with Festival Records in-house producer, Pat Aulton, in the late 1960s. Aulton continued as main producer of Festival's pop music releases until 1973. In 1970 Festival established a new imprint label, Infinity Records, and Batchens became its main producer and engineer.[1]

Batchens co-produced the debut album, At the Mountains of Madness (April 1971), by progressive rock and heavy rockers, Blackfeather, with their lead guitarist, John Robinson.[1][2][3] Its associated single, "Seasons of Change" appeared in May.[1][2] The material was recorded in late 1970 and featured guest appearances by two members of Fraternity, an Adelaide-based group: Bon Scott on recorder and percussion, and John Bissett on keyboards. The album reached No. 7 in the Australian national charts. The track, "Seasons of Change", had originally been written by Robinson and Neale Johns for Fraternity.[4] It proved to be one of Blackfeather's most popular singles and became a national Top 20 hit when released, against the band's wishes, as a single. This track also crops up on Raven's Golden Miles CD compilation in 1994 along with the album track, "Long Legged Lovely".[5]

From 1972 to 1975 he produced or co-produced five albums for pop group, Sherbet.[3] From 1973 to 1979 he produced six albums for Richard Clapton including his first four studio albums, a soundtrack album, Highway One (1976), and a compilation album, Past Hits and Previews (1979).[3][6]

Cold Chisel's debut self-titled album in 1978 had been produced by Peter Walker.[3] For their second album, Breakfast at Sweethearts, the record company, Elektra Records, decided to use a more experienced producer.[7] Batchens was chosen due to his work with Sherbet and Clapton.[3][7] According to Australian journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, Batchens "was not all that keen on the band's individual performances in the studio and made them do things over and over".[7] Although "he smoothed out the rough edges", however he "lost some of the life".[7] Meanwhile, "the more sophisticated approach tended to highlight the quality of the songs".[7] Nimmervoll noted that the "band had their reservations, but they were reasonably happy with the results".[7] Breakfast at Sweethearts proved to be their commercial breakthrough, turning Cold Chisel into platinum selling superstars.[7] After attempting to record a follow-up single with Batchens, Cold Chisel decided to record their next album, East (1980), with Mark Opitz producing.[3][7]

According to sources:[1][3][6][9]