Production

SUGARCANE – ART TERRY – BAKA – SOUVENIR OF ENGLAND – MARIANNE DISSARD – THE SILVER PANDA – MIKA MANN – TOM RODWELL – LUNATRAKTORS – AUGUST – JOY JOSEPH

I’ve always been somebody that’s inclined to tinker about with things to figure out how they work… And I’ve always been as interested in sounds as I am in notes or words… I drifted into record production initially out of frustration with never getting the sound I wanted elsewhere, and found it be a natural fit for my way of thinking about music…

The first ‘proper’ productions I put my name on – the first ones that made it onto vinyl at least – were the debut albums we put out in 2009 for my own group, August, and for singer-songwriter Art Terry, whose group the Fairys I had played with previously; along with a 7″ single in the same year for Joy Joseph, who at the time was my bandmate in the group Mr Hudson & The Library…

Those first releases do all have plenty of charm to offer, but I’ll readily admit in retrospect that as a producer I had no idea what I was doing. I was learning on the job, and very lucky to have the opportunity to do it in such good company. I was also dividing my time between production and various other commitments – I was bassist and bandleader / musical director at the time for August, Art, Joy, Mr Hudson & several other bands too, and I’d started my own record label, Frizz Records, for which I was trying to manage every responsibility from designing the record sleeves to making the tea…

Fast forward about a decade, and circumstances conspired to make me decide to focus on production more seriously… I became a father in 2015, and at the time was making my main living as a touring musician, but I wanted to be around to watch my daughter grow rather than be off on the road; and not long after she arrived the decision was taken out of my hands because I was hospitalised with a serious back injury, and told I’d never play on stage again… I was determined to prove the doctors wrong, and spent three years building my strength up again and got myself back to playing some local gigs, only to end up back in hospital in a worse mess…

So for now at least I’m an entirely studio-bound creature, and I’ve been making the very best of that predicament by producing a string of albums since 2019 for Art Terry, Lunatraktors, Sugarcane, Tom Rodwell, The Silver Panda and Marianne Dissard, along with numerous singles and EPs for these artists and others… (Take a look at my ever-expanding Discography for a detailed list!)

(work in progress…more about these various records coming soon along with audio & video…!)