| Want you to know... Freelance Hellraiser |
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| "The response to ‘Stroke Of Genius’ was immense, it seemed to blow up in the space of a week – there was a bit of controversy around it, which always helps" |
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Those who pay attention will know we like a good mash-up here at CMU. For those who pay no attention, that’s the (normally unofficial) mixing of two or more songs to create a new track. The burgeoning mash-up genre is exciting on so many levels. It can reinvent and rediscover classic tracks. It can give alternative music a mainstream feel, or mainstream music a more edgy sound. But perhaps most importantly it provides so called ‘bedroom producers’ with the opportunity to hone their skills and reach a wider audience, introducing the music industry and music fans to a whole new generation of talented fader pushers who may otherwise have failed to get admission into the somewhat closed shop of music production. As the internet aided modern era of the unofficial remix comes of age some of the earlier mash-up makers are reaching the mainstream: Go Home Productions' Doors/Blondie mash-up appeared on EMI's Blondie greatest hits package last year; a Mylo/Miami Sound Machine mix conceived by Phil N Dog inspired the Mylo mash-up released by SonyBMG last summer; Beck was so impressed with Team 9’s Jacko sampling remix of ‘E-Pro’ that he linked to it from his official website. One of the earliest stars of the modern mash-up era was Mr Roy Kerr, better known to the bootleg community as the Freelance Hellraiser. His ‘Stroke Of Genius’ (in name and nature) mash-up, which combined The Strokes and Christina Aguilera to great effect, was hugely influential on the then fledgling scene – and was possibly responsible for turning more people on to that scene than any bootleg mix before or after. Having won friends in high places for his remixing and mash-up work (including one Paul McCartney, who's in quite a high place), Roy is now in the process of completing his first original music album. It’s always a challenge when you're better known for messing with other people’s songs to have to start creating your own – but on ‘Waiting For Clearance’ the Freelance Hellraiser has proven that his musical talents go a lot further than the remixing domain. So much so, we had to speak to him to find out more. |
“I was doing quite a lot of DJing, to pay the rent mainly, and I liked the idea of having a couple of tracks in my DJ set that no one else had,” Roy says, explaining how he first dabbled in that mash-up thing. “I’d heard one of those Soulwax compilations and that got me interested in the idea of mixing tracks together. And so I started creating some bootlegs, to play out during my sets. It still had a novelty value back then – it was great to see people’s reactions as they realized what tracks were being mixed together”.
But the DJing and mash-up making was always a side line to Roy’s musical ambitions – the former to bring in cash, the latter to build profile. Much of the rest of his time was spent developing original music – work that has led to the upcoming long player release ‘Waiting For Clearance’. “I went to uni and always had music ambitions. I met [Snow Patrol’s] Gary Lightbody while I was at college, so I was around others with musical leanings. But after college I moved to London, got a proper job [for the Post Office!] and never quite got round to the music thing”.
“But after a few years in the real world I realised how much I wanted to make music, and I figured that if I put the time I was putting into partying into making music, I could probably accomplish quite a lot. So I started doing that – and then decided to dedicate myself to it full time, quitting my day job and giving the music thing one final shot”.
It was a brave thing to do – some how it’s tempting to think in the music world that if you don’t ‘make it’ in your late teens or student years then it’s too late. But that’s just not true, as Roy is proving - if you’ve got the ideas and commitment, and some time to invest, chances are there will be a receptive audience out there whatever your age. The challenge, of course, is finding them, which is where, for Roy, the mash-ups came in.
“The mash-ups were a bit of fun, but they definitely helped get me noticed. It took me by surprise at the start. The response to ‘Stroke Of Genius’ was immense, and it seemed to blow up in the space of a week. There was a bit of controversy around it, which always helps. That response got me a lot more established – as a DJ and a remixer”.
Among the DJ bookings that followed was one to support a certain Paul McCartney on his European tour. “They suggested I do some remixes of Paul’s stuff to include in the warm up sets at the concerts, which I did. That then led to a much bigger remix project”. And a very interesting remix project at that. With Paul taking an interest in the early Freelance Hellraiser remixes of his tracks, he gave Roy access to his entire solo back catalogue with the brief to create an underground remix album of his music. That album was ‘Twin Freaks’, released via EMI’s Parlophone label as a limited edition vinyl long player last year.
“There was a wealth of stuff,” Roy recalls, “Forty tracks, all with 25 odd tracks within. It took three months to go through it all. For a bootlegger it was heaven – from trying to cut samples out of radio edits, I suddenly had access to a whole library of original recordings”.
Given the love hate relationship between the major record companies and the unofficial mash-up scene, was it surprising that McCartney wanted to offer such wide access to his work? “Not really. People like McCartney are always very aware of all the interesting things happening out there – they’re frequently on it before the rest of us. When I first met him, he was playing the ‘Grey Album’ [DJ Dangermouse’s Jay-Z / Beatles mash-up album] – there will always be licensing issues when you’ve got big record companies involved, but guys like McCartney love the idea”.
The only downside of the whole Twin Freaks project was that its release was pretty low profile. “It was always meant to be that way", Roy explains, "one for the real McCartney fans. Obviously Paul had a new album out last year too, and they didn’t want to overshadow that. But it spread quite far despite being very much a side project.” Will it get a wider release in the future? “Who knows? We’ll see I guess”.
But enough of the remixes and mash-ups, back to the original stuff and the new long player, several years in the making, but sounding flipping marvellous for it. “The original album was always the plan – that’s what I’ve always wanted to do. That said, it’s much harder than the remixes. Mainly because you’re putting yourself on the line, you’re taking the full responsibility for what you produce. That can be quite scary!”
Harder also because Roy didn’t want to just make music for the dance floor which, he admits, is the domain of most of his mash-ups. The Freelance Hellraiser album was going to be electronica, but with an eclectic feel within that genre. “I wanted to try out different things on this album, cover different styles with each track. They are nearly all collaborations – so that helps bring in the variety. I’d work on the music – creating a basic sound – then I’d send it to [the aforementioned] Gary [Lightbody], or [other collaborator] Iain [Archer], or play it to [wife, and final collaborator] Lalula, and see where they could take it, musically or lyrically. They provide most of the voices on the album – although I’m singing on a couple – which was interesting!”
I’ve not heard the final final product – "it’s nearly done!" Roy assures me – but a fair few of the tracks have been on rotation play on my CD player for a couple of weeks now, and they’re all something special; though each one for different reasons. Forthcoming single release ‘Want You To Know’, meanwhile, has quickly become one of my all time favourite songs.
So I now wait in anticipation for the finished product, and equally for the possibility of a live show. “I can’t wait to turn my attention to a live show,” Roy admits, “I really caught the touring bug when I was DJing for Paul. It’s hard to explain the feeling you get when you’re going on stage. I think most of the album will sound great live. I’m not quite sure how we’ll do it – obviously Gary for one has a very busy schedule. But we’ll get something sorted”.
There are several hugely talented producers in the mash-up community just now, and I look forward to seeing if and how they move into the original track domain. But they’ll have quite a hard act to follow – though as one of the first of the modern mash-up makers to cross over, the Freelance Hellraiser has set the quality threshold pretty damn high.
Some Freelance Hellraiser plugging:
Freelance Hellraiser's 'Want You To Know'/'Pound For Pound' was released on 27 Feb 2006 on SonyBMG/Ugly Truth Records.
