Issue 041
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Hi John, how's life? Talk us through a<br />
typical day for you.<br />
Hi there! Life is good! Busy! Typical my day starts<br />
with walking the dog (non-negotiable) before sitting down at<br />
8.30am. I’ll work through till 5 or 6, but the evenings -<br />
unless there’s a pressing deadline - are strictly for time with<br />
my wife and chilling out.<br />
I think the biggest influences for me in the last few<br />
years have been the variety of work other than writing<br />
‘Electronic Dance’ music I’ve done in the last few years.<br />
Scoring work and music to picture is completely different to<br />
writing a dance track, and has naturally directed me to use<br />
more orchestral influences in the music I write. I think that<br />
naturally also pushes you to be more daring and bold<br />
melodically as well as experimenting with tempo, drum<br />
programming and sound design.<br />
Work can consist of several things. Whether it’s<br />
something creative such as some scoring work or some<br />
sound design, running my own audio business, Sonas Audio<br />
Services, mastering other peoples music, or the other side of<br />
the coin, responding to emails and catching up on admin for<br />
my label Likeminded Music.<br />
No day is ever the same! I’ve just finished writing<br />
an album of cinematic breakbeat for a music library company<br />
so I’m in the midst of mixing that. Alongside this I’m<br />
currently studying an MA in Music Production so need to fit<br />
that in somewhere as well!<br />
Busy indeed! Let’s start at the<br />
beginning. What got you hooked on<br />
electronic music and who were your<br />
inspirations?<br />
To put it simply, two words: Big Beat. I was 15<br />
years old when The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim were<br />
taking over the world and they well and truly opened my<br />
eyes to electronic music. From there I got really into hunting<br />
for the samples they used so naturally found an interest in<br />
funk and then hip-hop. At that time as well it was<br />
inescapable to get away from trance and progressive house<br />
as well so acts like Bedrock, Futureshock and Sasha were<br />
huge influences on my musical tastes growing up. It was<br />
such an exciting time around the turn of the year 2000, so<br />
much creativity and experimentation going on.<br />
Now you’re a professional audio<br />
engineer, working with some of the<br />
scenes biggest artists, how do you<br />
feel your work life bleeds into your<br />
own productions?<br />
It's impossible not to be inspired and<br />
influenced by people you work with. However, I<br />
always feel that everyone needs to tread their own<br />
path to stand out.<br />
If you try and imitate something that’s popular now,<br />
you are already behind as the next wave of trends is already<br />
on its way in the underground. That’s where you need to<br />
focus and draw inspiration from. But as I say, be unique and<br />
have faith and confidence in what you’re doing.<br />
As an artist yourself, you’ve released<br />
4 albums plus countless singles.<br />
D’you ever wonder when that ‘big hit’<br />
will catapult you into stardom or are<br />
you content to make music other<br />
people enjoy?<br />
The thing with me is that I am pretty much always<br />
writing. The previous 4 albums were the product of that and<br />
were very much a record of me learning my craft as an artist<br />
and a producer. You can hear the music develop in structure,<br />
melodic content and also in production value as the albums<br />
were released.<br />
I’m sure many fellow artists and producers can<br />
relate to having folders full of unfinished projects. I write<br />
music because I enjoy the process of creating something<br />
from nothing. The fact I don’t actually play an instrument or<br />
have any knowledge of music theory means my process of<br />
actually writing anything melodic is quite long winded, but<br />
it’s a great feeling when things click.<br />
So what I did a couple of years ago is make a<br />
conscious effort to get everything that was worth finishing,<br />
finished. The result of that was about 40 tracks that made<br />
up a lot of things that were used in scores, other kinds of<br />
media as well as used for other people. The ”Big Hit” would<br />
be great! There’s no point denying that. Everyone who writes<br />
music wants it to be listened to by as many people as<br />
possible, and it gives you validation to what you’re doing. I’ll<br />
keep doing what I’m doing though, and hopefully it’ll come.<br />
Aside from a Beatport number one,<br />
have you afforded yourself a<br />
moment to daydream about how it’ll<br />
do on release day?<br />
I don’t know, the feedback from DJs has been<br />
amazing. Support from Anthony Papa, Nick Muir,<br />
Kasey Taylor and Just Her (to name a few) has been<br />
brilliant and the feedback has been amazing. People<br />
have been playing out all three versions and getting a<br />
great response. Who knows! I’ve got a good feeling about<br />
it though.<br />
46 ZONE-MAGAZINE.EU