Mark Pritchard

Mark Pritchard

I live in the South-West of England and have been making music for around 12 years now. I started making music in my spare time while I was a chef. Eventually, I made enough money from the music to do it full time, which I've been doing ever since. I started DJing and making music with friends and then pressed up my first white label. In those days you would just do a white label EP, 500 copies or whatever, and just put it out there.

RBMA

 And you were DJing in your local area?

Mark Pritchard:

Yeah, just like local clubs, and a friend of mine started to promote local clubs. We did like one EP and then and I was DJing in a place called Taunton, in the West Country, and it was really a good club night. And that was a good time because you could play everything. You could play hip hop, you could play all the genres that were closely linked by tempo as well, apart from obviously hip hop. All the techno and house that was coming out, the early breakbeat scene, and the early sort of drum & bass, rave scene was all around 120 to 130 [bpms]. So, you could literally play everything, which was really nice. You could go through anything, which I enjoyed. And then after a night at this club a guy came up to me and said: "I just moved to Taunton from Cornwall and I thought this place would have nothing going on, but you just played all the tunes that I like." He just said: "I make music and I work with this guy called the Aphex Twin." I went back to his house that night and he played me Aphex Twin tracks for about five hours.

RBMA:

What year are we talking about here?

Mark Pritchard

I think it was about '91/'90, something like that. I was setting up my own label at the time and we just kept in contact, and eventually, we decided to set up the first label that we started, called Evolution Records. I'd already done the first release and after that we started working together on tracks.

RBMA:

And this release was under the name of...?

Mark Pritchard:

Reload. We just built it from there and from that label the Reload project, Global Communication was born, and Link, which eventually ended up on Warp.

RBMA:

So you're history with Tom Middleton is quite a long one.

Mark Pritchard:

Yeah,Speaker:

we worked together 'till about '96/'97-ish.

RBMA:

What kind of style would you say that was?

Mark Pritchard

  Sort of inspired by Detroit techno and industrial music because some of it was pretty distorted and heavy. And also, soundtracks and ambient artists like Brian Eno, Vangelis and those sort of people. At that time people were quite anal about techno. It's like techno had to be a certain thing, house had to be a certain thing, had to sound a certain way. If you were a techno artist and then went to do some house music, then people were like: "That's not a techno guy, it's not proper stuff." People were really, really hardcore about it. So we just thought, "Well, let's just use another name. Let's change the name, do another project, put it out there, and not really telling anybody about it and let it do its thing."

RBMA:

Do you think that worked to your advantage?

Mark Pritchard:

It didn't. I mean, it had to be done that way but it just confused people. I mean, I'm even confused by some names I've got and people were end up saying: "Oh, you did that!" And I'm like, "I just get bored of doing the same stuff all the time." And also, I wanted to avoid the classic, do an album, and then do another album but it hasn't got the vibe of the first one. The first album, or the first couple of things have got a certain energy about it, and then it becomes a bit more like repeating itself after that. There might be the odd good track but then you would always look back to the early stuff. So I was really happy the way it went. It wasn't really that intentional, but that way you do an album and then you move on do something else, and you learn from doing that style. And you learn things that will help when you go back doing that style again. You learn just so much from doing all the different styles and techniques all the time.

RBMA

What kind of things were inspiring you?

Mark Pritchard

 Early on, I suppose, Detroit techno was a massive influence, really. When I started going to clubs I started to hear a lot of the early Detroit techno, Chicago house and New York house, all at the same time. So the first releases were quite techno-sounding. I was into Derrick May,CarlCraig, Kevin Saunderson,JuanAtkins, all those people. After the Global Communication album, in about '93/'94 we started a project called the Jedi Knights.

RBMA

What was that?

Mark Pritchard

The idea behind it was that a lot of club music was losing its funk, it was all getting very serious. And we were like: "Look, we wanna get the funk back into stuff." And that was it, so it was like electro-y, some of it was p-funk, house stuff, there was some fusion-y stuff, a mixture of breaks of all sorts, and we released the Jedi Knights album on our own label. We did no press or anything, it was just one of those timing things as it sold really well. We couldn't believe it.

RBMA

So you could buy yourself a nice flash car.

Mark Pritchard

No, unfortunately I invested it in putting out lots of other music. So we put it all back into the label, and then 'round about '97/'98, there was some real distribution problems in the UK.

RBMA

Can you explain a bit about that?

Mark Pritchard

The company we were with was absolutely amazing, and our label managers and all the exporters were really into the music we were doing, and we had a really good relationship and we were selling really well. They did a good job and then they merged with another company and most of the good people from the company that we were with got sacked. When we went to this new company our sales dropped dramatically overnight.

RBMA

Can that be attributed just to the fact that the new staff didn't had an idea about the kind of music that you were making and the contacts you had in the past?

Mark Pritchard

I think it's really important if your have a label to have really good relationships with the people there and that they really understand the music. Because if they're really into the music and they're on the phone and they're just saying, "I got the new bla bla, and it's wicked," then you're gonna sell a lot more records. When you go to a company where they are maybe not into the same sort of thing, and they're selling your thing without any passion, then it really is gonna hit your sales. We literally dropped by 50% or maybe more. It was really, really tricky and we stupidly didn't stop the label, we tried our hardest to keep it going. By doing that we incurred massive debts, and all of a sudden we were like, "Shit! We got to close it down."

RBMA

 Is that a lot of money we are talking about?

Mark Pritchard

 A lot of money, yeah. We couldn't liquidate the company either, so we had to pay the debts back, which was really harsh. It took like three years probably to clear it. Luckily, I was signed to Island Records at that point and the advance I got for that helped pay quite a bit of the debt and then I just had to find work like remixing. At that point I just had to get as much money and as quick as I could and remixing is the only way of getting instant cash.

RBMA

From that point on, about '98/'99, you and Tom started to do separate projects.

Mark Pritchard

Tom had moved to London right around '97 and when that happened we worked together less and less. I went to focus on more experimental stuff and tried to learn how to make hip hop.

Participant

I heard your first record was "Roobarb & Custard," is this true?

(laughter)

Mark Pritchard

 No, that's not true. When I was working as a chef I was making music all the time, and I started going to clubs and the rave scene was kicking off. My friends and I decided to do a white label of an EP, I had already done like four tracks. Then, one night coming back from the club we were joking about cheesy, rave, cartoon, nonsense tunes and the next day I just made this track using a part of a cartoon that I liked when I was a kid. And they were like, "We just put it on a 12 'cause it might help sell a few copies." 'Cause  we were really worried about paying my mate's debt back, the money we needed to press the records. So we just put it on and it went like top ten.

RBMA

What top ten, national charts?

Mark Pritchard

Yeah, like christmas top ten. It went to number 7.

RBMA

Wow! Were you actually on Top Of The Pops?

Mark Pritchard

Yeah, went on twice.

RBMA

 Really, you? Top Of The Pops?

Mark Pritchard

Yeah, very surreal experience. It was good because I got to see the dark side of the industry from the early stage. Because I got ripped off really, really badly with that tune . I was just a young kid from the West Country, and when I was taking the tune around no one was interested.

RBMA

When you say "taking around," to record companies?

Mark Pritchard

 No, just to shops. We would press five hundred, just drive around to different shops, go to London and trying to sell it. And people were like, "We have five or a couple." An we were like, "Shit!" Then we went to one shop in Southampton and the guy just said: "Look, I want all of them. I want another 1,000 on Monday." And then, within a week, the guy said: "This is gonna be massive."

RBMA:

Where's your head now?

Mark Pritchard

At the moment I'm doing mainly two projects. One is called Troubleman, which is for a label called Far Out, which is a label that got mainly famous Brazilian artists from years back and encourages them to do new albums, encouraging them to do new albums, got them back in the studio doing new music, not just sort of reissuing compilations.

RBMA

So you did a couple of mixes for Azymuth?

Mark Pritchard

Yeah, I think me and Tom did a mix for "Jazz Carnival" about like '96/'97 and then I just found out that someone was doing a remix, reissue thing with "Jazz Carnival" through a journalist and then I just phoned Far Out and just said: "Look, I heard you are doing this thing for Azymuth. I really love Azymuth and I want to do a mix." And I did a mix for nothing and it did really, really well, but lost contact with Joe for a while. Then he phoned me up again: "Do you want to do more mixes?" I was like, "Yeah, definitely." Then he paid me a bit more than what he would have paid me, just to thank me for doing the first one. Then he said: "Do you want to do an album?" I was like, "Yeah, OK. Cool." This is the first Azymuth remix I did on my own, it's very crappy, my version.

(music: Azymuth - Jazz Carnival (Space Jazz remix))

RBMA

When you did the remix, what parts did they give you?

Mark Pritchard

I just got a DAT of all the parts: drums, bass, keys, and I just put a drum beat in, took a bit of the bass, got that grooving and just messed around with it, started vibing, playing things on top. Then I got a friend of mine come in and play as well some extra keys live over the top.

Participant

When you do a remix like this, did he want you to do a certain sound, put pressure on you what kind of direction the remix he wants you to go?

Mark Pritchard

Luckily, with Joe from Far Out, in fact, it's probably the best remix commission I've ever had. He just said: "Do whatever you want," and paid me all the money upfront, which never happened [before]. Chasing money from labels is one of my biggest nightmares. From the smallest to the biggest labels, it's all the same, it's a nightmare. And Joe was like: "Here's the cheque for all the money, do whatever you want. I trust you." And that was it, which was wicked 'cause it took me completely at ease, and it almost, in a way, made me want to do even more of an effort.

Participant

When you work on a remix, do you try to keep the same feeling of the original track or try to do something completely different?

Mark Pritchard

If I'm doing the remix 'cause I like the track, then I will maybe try and keep what that track's about. But unfortunately, most of the remixes I've done the original elements have been terrible. At that point I try and make something out of those, you know, take some sounds off the DAT and just fuck around and try and make something out of it. Sometimes I just get a groove going and make a track and then the problems is trying to get something of the track into the track that I like.

RBMA

I hear you use a really interesting guy near you [for vinyl cutting and mastering]?

Mark Pritchard

 Yeah, there is a guy about half an hour from where I live in the West Country and he is just unbelievable. I mean, he does stuff to the music that is just... I put the DAT on and it sounds OK, and when you listen to what he's done to it, and you go back to the DAT, I just feel depressed. Through that I learned loads and loads about mixdown 'cause I see the problems I was always getting and I go back and make sure next time I really watch that, and I do lots of different passes to DAT with different things, louder, quieter, then I go in again and next time it might be a bit better, and then there might be something else wrong. He's just amazing 'cause he's been cutting for a long, long time. He started off cutting for Island Records, and he used to cut all the Bob Marley stuff, all the Island Records stuff, David Bowie, hits after hits after hits all those years. He just got a really good ear, no matter what music you take to him, he gets what it needs and he will try anything to make it sound how you want it to sound. He really wired the studio before because he thought he would get a slightly better level doing it a different way and he got lots of old school bits of valve gear, and he also got a lot of the new technology. He is really on the new technology because he found that a lot of the new technology hasn't got the same sound as the analogue sound. So he tried a lot of different experiments to try and get the digital stuff sound like analogue tape, the warmth and the clarity. Even down to the wiring, the recommended wiring on his systems, he didn't like the sound of the system when he first bought it, and he changed the wiring and used some cheaper cable and it sounded much better. The cable they recommended, he said, "There is something wrong here." He phoned the company up and said: "Look, your system doesn't sound right. I use this cheap cable and it sounds better now." And they said: "No, you can't use that cheap stuff." And he's like, "Use your ears, it sounds better." And now they give him to test their gear, basically. It is hard to find this in cutting rooms and it's a massive part making or breaking a record.

Participant

What's the name of the company?

Mark Pritchard:

It's called Loud Mastering and it's in Taunton in the West Country.

RBMA:

Tell us a little bit more about this Harmonic 33 thing.

Mark Pritchard

The Harmonic 33 project has been going for quite a while. Basically, I wanted to focus on making hip hop. I've always loved hip hop but never really tried to make it and never got near making it properly. The other reason for focusing on hip hop, apart from the fact that I really wanted to make it and love it, is that, a lot of the music I like, club music, was made by people that were hip hop heads. I knew that by mastering hip hop music, it would really benefit all the other music that I was gonna make. Because down to all the house music that I liked, like Kenny Dope, he is a hip hop head, and his beats were rough, and were done on an SP in hip hop way. And that was the stuff I was always drawn to in that scene. The drum & bass stuff that I was really into, especially a guy called Danny Breaks, who has a label called Droppin' Science, again, he is just a hip hop head and got into making drum & bass. I like the feel and the sound and the creativity that's going into his music. You know, more interesting samples, not the same old drum break everybody uses, he was searching for new, fresh breaks. So I knew through doing that it would help everything and it definitely did.

(music: Harmonic 33 - The Holy Track)

I suppose, early on, when I started to do hip hop stuff I was using the SP-12 to start writing the track. I get the basic groove and the samples going through the SP-12, and then I put it across into Logic and then either run the SP alongside synched with Logic or I dump the MIDI information into Logic and carry on working inside Logic. What I really like about drum machine programming is the timing and the feel and the sound. The SP's got an incredible feel about it, and the thing I noticed about using computers is that it's harder to get that feel with a computer. Through programming a beat on an SP, recording the MIDI information into the computer, and then just looking at where it was placing each part of the drum beat and where it puts the music to trigger the samples, I noticed it was doing really interesting things, also to the tempo. Logic tracks the tempo when you put MIDI into it, and the tempo is going up and down subtly. All the different parts of the beat were all moved to different places. Like, the hi-hat's were late, kick drums were very much much bang on, snares were often slightly late, and through doing that I learned how to program on the computer and get the sound I wanted with the SP. The last Harmonic 33 EP was mainly done all in Logic. The thing that I find, I always tried to be honest with what I do, and just make music from the heart, no matter how hard it's been. 'Cause it's definitely hard to make it in the music industry. Lots of ups and downs, but you just got to keep pushing on, keep believing in yourself and not get caught up in the bullshit 'cause there's definitely an awful lot of bullshit in this industry. A lot of egos get boosted up along the way, and I just try to avoid all that sort of shit. Just keep doing what you believe in, and if you put the effort in, I think you do get the bonuses. You may feel like, "Fuck, why am I doing this stuff and not make any money?" But I found, and through a lot of people I know, you keep plugging away and keep doing your stuff, you will get something back. I found that over the years, there's been times I'vebeen like, "Shit, why am I putting all this effort in and I'm skinned?" But then, all of a sudden, something will happen.

RBMA

Mark Pritchard, thank you very much indeed.