This is an interview about the "good" and the "bad" old times, the genesis of "Blue Lines", the new project called CirKus he's involved in under the name of Burt Ford with his wife Neneh and the two gifted young musicians, Karmil and Lolita Moon and much more…
Hi Cameron. Could you talk us about the Wild Bunch, the 80's collective of writers, rappers and dj you were part of with Massive Attack members Daddy G, 3D, Dj Mushrooms and Tricky Kid. You were mixing hip hop with punk, funk reggae, dub, we could say you were representing a certain avant-garde in British music at that time?
C: «Ok, I can talk about it but I was never part of "the wild bunch". I started hearing great music coming from from "the wild bunch" and Smith and Mighty so I traveled down there to check out the scene. By the time I arrived there "the wild bunch" had split up as DJ Milo (Miles) and Nellee Hooper had moved to London and the remaining members had changed their name to "Massive Attack". In fact I knew both Nellee & Miles from being out & about in London club land. Smith and Mighty were quite hard to get to know but they were making amazing tunes. I traveled down to meet them several times but they never really let me in. They in fact produced massive attack's first tune "Any love" with a lead vocal by Carlton McCarthy which Neneh and I helped promote by taking Carlton on tour with us at the time of "Buffalo Stance".
When I was making "Manchild" for Neneh I was helped by Nellee Hooper in its original construction and he introduced me to Massive Attack's 3D who wrote the raps on "Manchild". Then I got Mushroom to mime the DJ sections for Top of the Pops on "Buffalo Stance" and then he played me Massive Attack's music and that's how our relationship in fact began.
Neneh and I had "The Cherry Bear Organization" which was set up to help people making music who were in danger of being ripped off by the same music business creeps that had ripped Neneh and I off and this is where we funded the Massive Attack & Portishead projects from. Nellee Hooper and Jazzy B from Soul2Soul were meant to produce the first Massive Attack album but they took too long and Jazzy was too distracted so I said I'd do it. This is when I met Tricky and Claude and the rest of the Massive Attack crew. They were all seriously entertaining, interesting and deeply original people and both Neneh & I took to them and their cause immediately…»
Could you talk us about the birth of "Blue Lines", the Massive Attack album you were the executive producer of, which started what the critics call "The Bristol sound”. Which was the atmosphere you were surrounded by in those days? I read you recorded some of the tracks of the album in the room of your babies and that Neneh Cherry was the one who was pushing the band, very lazy at that time, into recording… Do you have any other particular memory of that time?
C: «In fact I was the producer in charge but Massive Attack thought I would get too much credit if I was both manager and producer so I changed my title to "exec producer!"
We made most of the album in mine and Neneh's house in London, with babies, the office, the children and all of Massive Attack hanging out of every available nook and cranny! We had debt collectors banging on the door every day looking for money, it was a crazy time.
It took a year in all to record "Blue Lines". The group insisted we decamp to "finish off" the album! This took for ever and wasn't nearly as productive as the sessions. BUT… it was a great time now I look back on it and I wouldn't change it for the world… well maybe some of it… like the Sunday afternoon football matches in my garden… a lot of legs got bruised!
Massive Attack decided after this time to go one way and I decided to go another… I didn't really feel I could do a second album with them so I pulled out. They never really forgave me for this but I stick by what I did. I couldn't top "Blue Lines"».
Neneh Cherry, Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, All Saints… in the music of all these artists it's possible to single out a common "touch", yours. How much do you feel responsible for these artists success?
C: «I was there, I was a team player and I NEVER ran away no matter how scary things got. Maybe with Sugababes and All Saints I let my children call the shots because my personal musical sensibilities didn't really agree with the group's but I still feel I added my own brand of real shit, song writing and chaos to what they did…
With Portishead… I just refused to "produce" for Geoff Barrow… I just kept telling him to "fuck off" and carry on in the same direction he was already going by himself… me and Neneh paid their weekly wages and gave them train fare to get home regularly to Portishead…
Why did you choose to remain in incognito and use a fake name, Burt Ford, and not to reveal your identity in the CirKus project? You even made up a fake story about Burt Ford saying you found his telephone number on the cover of a demo tape in which he was playing "old school lounge lizard cabaret style classic reggae". That's crazy! But maybe it's something common in your family since I read Marlon from Mattafix is your son and also the little boy who was in the "Manchild" video and he didn't do much to publicize it as well.
C: «For me history is in the past and I'm not a backward looking kind of guy.
Maybe it's because my head won't turn around that far but I'm always peering ahead... and I LOVE the name BURT and FORD looks so good in ads».
How did happen you choose the nickname Booga Bear, which I read in the "Urban Dictionary" should mean "a bald, fat, ugly black woman"?
C: «Well yes that would be one way of describing me: "a bald, fat, ugly black woman". Mind you this is an offense to black women everywhere».
How did you exactly meet Karmil and Lolita Moon?
C: «Karmil got a job at my studio which he was turned on to by my old assistant James Dring who is now part of the Gorillaz and Damon Albarn camp. Karmil then got caught sleeping on the floor of the studio as he had nowhere else to sleep in London and had M.E. (immune deficiency disorder), so he got shipped (by my wife) to our house… he then stole LOADS of equipment from my studio and took it to his bedroom at our house, brought Lolita Moon home and then conned me into writing with him as opposed to watching bad, late night English TV after a day at the studio trying to pay the rent. Then I was trapped and hooked into being a member of his "band" or "group" or whatever it is. It was a fucking hijack!" I never stood a chance».
And how comes a brilliant producer who's always been "in the dark" decided to become the leading voice of a band, playing live on stage?
C: « Come and see us play live and say that! ».
Your voice is very very near to Horace Andy's gravel voice. Is it something "calculated", something you though about, or is it the way the natural way you use to sing?
C: «I think that MAYBE... just MAYBE it has something to do with the amount of ganja we both smoke... MAYBE!!!».
In order to read the whole interviews go to the CirKus myspace site.
This interview was made by Susanna La Polla of Tribe Magazine
This was seized 4 u at CirKus myspcace
tags: reseize,cirkus,Massive Attack,Cameron McVey,Booga Bear,Neneh Cherry,Blue Lines,musicLabels: Blue Lines, Booga Bear, Cameron McVey, CirKus, Karmil, Lolita Moon, Massive Attack, music, Neneh Cherry, Tricky |
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