In a slightly different episode to our usual format, we chat with two guests who were part of arguably the world’s first virtual band, Res Rocket Surfer. This is a laid back chat on the mid 1990s and the emergence of internet-based music creation. To listen / watch: Audio-only: click on the play button in...
The post Steve Gregory & Mike Wilcox, Res Rocket Surfer / Red Mercury / Midnight Fields appeared first on The Keyboard Chronicles.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Hello and welcome to the keyboard Chronicles podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host David Holloway and I'm thrilled as always to be here with you.
it's a little bit of a special episode.
This one I've just had the pleasure of speaking for an hour with Mr.
Steve Gregory and Mr.
Mike Wilcox.
Now, Steve and Mike, as you'll hear are long-term friends, although I only met one of themfor the first time face to face after 25 years, about six weeks ago.
(00:37):
And Mike, who those who regularly listen may know as Mike from midnightmastering.com, ofour gold sponsors.
and I have been friends for many, many years, both in the physical and virtual realms.
So as you'll hear, we were involved in an incredibly innovative project for its timecalled Res Rocket Surfer, which then became Rocket Network.
(01:00):
As you'll hear, there were quite...
a fascinating history of the people that worked on it.
The three of us, in the case of Steve, he was an employee and Mike and I were helping outas testers of the software.
It was a fascinating journey with a piece of software that probably was before its time.
And as you may or may not be aware, there are some great virtual jamming solutions nowonline to allow people from remote distances to make music with each other.
(01:32):
It's been a pleasure making music with these two gentlemen for so many years and I hopeyou enjoy the interview because there's lots of history in there and I'll talk to you at
the end of the show.
(01:54):
I'm super pleased to be talking to two of the sexiest gentlemen alive.
How are you, Steve and Mike?
Very well, Dave.
No pressure.
So as I've just explained in the introduction, Steve, Mike and I go back a long, longtime, although Steve and I physically met for the first time only about six weeks ago.
(02:16):
And Mike and Steve have never met at all until 10 minutes ago, which is pretty impressive,isn't it?
Yes.
So, yeah, lovely to have you both on board.
as I also explained in the introduction, we're going to talk a little bit about both yourcareers to date and then how the three of us came together in what is, and it's documented
(02:38):
on the internet, so it must be true, the world's first virtual band.
So, but I will start off, I'll start with you, Mike.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and look, people players out there be warned, Mike'sactually a drummer.
but let's not hold that against him.
Mike, tell us about your musical upbringing.
I got introduced to music, like a lot of guys, at a very young age, primary school.
(03:02):
I got pushed into clarinets and flutes and all kinds of woodwind instruments at primaryage.
it wasn't something I was interested in, but I was convinced by my parents, if you stickto this, we'll let you play the drums.
I thought, right, I'll get through the scales.
I'll work through the majority of the basic stuff, which really
gave me foundation in music theory anyway, which I needed.
(03:25):
And by the time I got to high school, I was allowed to get drum kit, progressed from thepots and pans, got proper lessons and found my love of, you know, how's it to be a
musician for the future, we'll say.
But when you say not a keyboard player, if I had a second instrument, which is my composedmusic, I definitely do play the keys to compose.
(03:45):
But
Performing wise I'm definitely a drummer.
Yeah, that's very true.
And so the theory stuff Mike, I mean Steve you may have done theory I'm a total heathenwhen it comes to theory.
So you did do a bit of theory that you felt that's that's probably served you well to thisday.
Absolutely, absolutely.
think if any foundation to be able to write music is to understand scales, know, thedifferent various chords you need to do and just time signatures anything that's going to
(04:09):
help you build a foundation in, know, creation of music.
I know a lot of guys write without even knowing how to
You know, put the fingers on a guitar and they come up with a fantastic sounding chord.
And I'm sure that's a skill that anyone can grab, but just having the proper foundationsis always a great way to sort of get your bass in place.
True.
My favorite key to this day remains J major.
(04:32):
Steve, tell us about your musical upbringing.
Yeah, well, I grew up in New Zealand and I was at a school in a place called Nelson, whichis basically a brewery.
farming community, but they happened to have a really good music teacher at the highschool that I was at.
And out of that one school, were marching bands and pipe bands and brass bands and allsorts of stuff.
(04:57):
so everybody that went there, was a regular state school, had to do two instruments.
That was just part of the requirement.
was like 1500 people.
so yeah, I was introduced, I was playing probably like you, Mike.
I was playing clarinet, which I hated and had to walk around with the
saxophone players until I was allowed to play that.
(05:18):
so that's what I started with.
But we had a guy come in and demonstrate this thing called MIDI.
And this is back in the mid 80s.
And he brought the synthesizers and Simmons drums and this old computer thing.
And I was absolutely blown away with what you could do.
And so that's really what started me.
I was probably, I don't know, 13, 14 or something, guess then.
(05:41):
And yeah, got into that and then started
saving up for a synthesizer and I was in sort of involved with computers as well and sowas programming as well then.
That was back a long way.
What were you programming on back then Steve?
Commodore 64.
I was writing music.
(06:01):
I was writing music where the Commodore 64 was terrible.
You'd literally type in every single note and you'd hear it's terrible.
But good foundation.
That's funny.
And look, because we're all of a similar age, I'm not going to disclose all our ages.
I'll just say that Mike's 92 and I'm 28, but roughly the same age.
So let's take it forward to from our childhoods to 1994.
(06:28):
And I get a bit fuzzy on the years here.
I remember I joined the internet as it was or Compuserve in 1994, but I actually got
I thought given we're a technological trio in our involvement with ResRocket and thenRocket Network, I got an AI platform to do a summary of ResRocket and I thought I'd read
(06:51):
it for our viewers and listeners, because it's nice and short and sharp.
I do want to put a huge disclaimer though, I'm not sure some of the numbers and quotes areverifiable or accurate.
So I actually feel like the numbers that were first members were lower than what AIquotes.
I take it with a grain of salt, but otherwise it seems
pretty accurate.
So the Res Rocket Surfer project was launched in November 1994.
(07:13):
That seems about right.
It's considered the first virtual online band with a thousand members communicatingthrough a mailing list and FTP server.
That seems inflated, but you know, not probably that far off.
Founded by musicians Willie Henshel and Tim Brandt, true.
The project began by posting messages and sound files on Newsnet.
Now I'm going to stop there.
I don't recall that.
(07:34):
I think that's well using it.
have a feeling is where I found out about it.
Yeah.
mean, I, we weren't using it for music, but I certainly found out about it off one ofthose news channels, think early on.
All right.
So I'll give the benefit of doubt there.
And then it said later expanding to an FTP and website.
(07:55):
Now, obviously, I'm talking about the Moo in a minute.
That seems roughly right.
By January 1995, the project had amassed 600 members, even though it said it started witha thousand.
So don't ask me how that works.
Go AI.
Fostering a community of collaboration and creativity.
Absolutely.
By April 95, Hinchel and Brand joined forces with Canton Baker and Matt Moller.
(08:17):
Absolutely.
Two Chicago University students who created a MIDI Moo, a virtual environment enablingmulti-user real-time
music making across the internet.
Our real time is debatable, but it was brilliant.
So this collaboration led to the development of the, well, we called it the Dragon, butthe DRGN or the Distributed Real Time Groove Network software.
(08:39):
The project continued to evolve and in July 1997, ResRocket Surfers Dragon app wasunveiled at the Intel New Music Festival, I'm assuming it was, offering subscribers access
to public recording studios, jam sessions and chat rooms.
That's more like the, yeah, that's the second sort of iteration of it.
(09:00):
In April, 98, ResRocket Surfer caught the attention of Paul Allen, who the nerds out thereof our age would know was one of the co-founders of Microsoft, who provided significant
funding leading to the birth of what was then known as ResRocket Surfer became RocketNetwork.
And it was capable of fully professional quality recording of real live musicians.
(09:22):
And we'll talk about the reality of that too, which was quite cool.
However, as the project grew, it obviously got bigger and more corporate.
And then it was acquired by DigiDesign slash Avid in March 2003, marking the end of it asa solely online collaboration platform.
There you go.
(09:42):
Is that a fair summary, gents?
Yeah.
You can hit the dots there, Yeah, that's right.
So let's go back to 1994.
I mean, for those of us that are old enough out there listening and
watching most of you either weren't on the internet or it only just started.
Well, at least in an Australian context guys, mean, Steve, I know you're at uni.
(10:03):
You probably were on the internet, what from say 93 at the earliest.
I was, I was at uni in 1990.
I was doing computer science.
we, we had internet, but it was probably one of the earliest.
Yeah.
And Mike, would have been slightly after that.
yeah.
28 bit dial up.
Absolutely.
(10:24):
You 28, you got what that was, that was like, I know when rocket first started, and we'lltalk about it in a second.
The first dragon client I downloaded, I remember was 501 kilobytes.
And I was trying to download it on a 9,600 board modem.
And I think it took like 45 minutes to download.
Yes, you're actually right.
(10:46):
remember the 9,600.
So, all right, so we're all relatively new to the internet.
It was a new thing worldwide, everyone knows.
And so to hear, so I'm really interested, not so much in my story, but your stories of howyou got involved, but I'll just quickly tell mine.
Back in the days of real paper magazines with glossy covers, there was an industry magwhere Willie Henshel as one of the co-founders was interviewed talking about this amazing
(11:13):
new piece of software called Dragon.
It had only been in existence for, you know, six months to 12 months.
And he just gave an email address saying anyone out there that wants to join and getinvolved in testing this, I'm putting words in his mouth, dropped me an email.
So I went home to my little 9,600 board motive and sent him an email.
(11:34):
And like you guys was the three to my understanding, the first three Australians to everget involved with it.
And my understanding is the initial iteration, there were only about 50 or 60 of the corejammers.
But enough about me.
Mike, I'll start with you.
Do you remember how, if at all, how you got involved?
Yeah, like I think it was a similar story.
(11:54):
There was an expression of interest put out there.
It seemed like an amazing, innovative thing to do.
Being a drummer, I wasn't quite sure how I'd been involved in it.
I had keyboards, I knew how MIDI worked, I had the internet at its infancy.
And I thought, look, I'm just going to say, I'm here.
I'm in Australia, do you want someone from Australia to participate?
And I think they were bang on for getting someone on the opposite side of the world tojust test this thing out, you know?
(12:20):
So yeah, they got back to me pretty quickly with, you know, we were definitely interestedin having you on board.
actually never thought of that.
Here I was, I thinking of my huge talent that got me the job.
But that's quite right.
They'd be wanting to test.
They'd be wanting to test the traffic on the other side of the world.
guinea pigs.
no, just guinea pigs.
That's devastating, but true.
Steve, tell me about how you got involved.
(12:40):
It's funny because I was just thinking the same thing because I was thinking I auditioned,know, thinking I was this incredible musician, but I was probably, you know, when you
narrow it down to the number of people in Australia who had who had the internet and whowere musicians and connect the keyboard, there was probably only about four.
And just on the auditions, probably worth covering again.
(13:01):
feel like we're three old men on a veranda talking about the olden days, but it's stillworth it.
Auditioning in that respect.
And I did the same.
There was no, actually, I don't know about you.
Maybe I did call London on the phone at the time.
I can't remember when there was a phone call involved.
There might've been, I think I might've chatted before after.
but the actual audition was using the Dragon client.
(13:23):
So I may or may not with the video version of this podcast be able to give a screenshot ofthe Dragon.
I've got to see if it's around it.
I'm sure it is somewhere.
All it was, actually rather me talking, Steve, describe the Dragon, what the originalversion was like and what it involved.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it was written in a pretty high level kind of scripting language.
(13:45):
And from a technical point of view, it wasn't particularly complicated at all.
And it was, it was, was a bit like something like hypercard or one of those things on theMac years ago, which had a dreadful interface.
But, you just kind of clicked on a few buttons with your mouse and did things.
But the thing that it could do is it could actually record many data coming in, which wasthe information from a synthesizer that controls, but we're basically getting information
(14:09):
on what notes you were playing.
So you could, you could record a very small amount of a loop effectively and send thatacross the internet.
And it was like on a grid.
Yeah, it was like on a grid.
It was on a grid, was it?
Was it a four bar grid?
I can't remember.
that's a good point.
I think there were 16 notes.
Yeah, so I can't remember that was one bar.
(14:29):
Yeah, it was a four.
So you literally connected your MIDI module to your computer, which back in the day was afive pin DIN connection into, case of my Mac, whatever that awful the connection was into
the Mac.
And then you connected your MIDI device and from memory you just clicked on
checkboxes.
(14:50):
You cross-boxes.
did it sequentially.
Yeah, tapped it in.
Yeah, step time.
But it did support some level of real-time recording because I remember I played a bassline and then I actually played it.
That was my audition.
So it wasn't just clicking on it.
that just shows you the level I was working at.
Mike, what do you recall about the first time?
(15:12):
Did you, I assume, auditioned as well and the first time you used the app, what did youthink?
Yeah, look, going back to Steve's sort of introduction to MIDI, I got my toes in withAmiga and Atari's and, you know, that kind of really basic MIDI recording software.
And the introduction is I thought, what is this?
(15:35):
How are they going to make this into some sort of professional, you know, studioapplication?
And not really understanding where it was going, I thought, this is not going be possibleto get a band together.
And wondering exactly
Is my part going to be heard by just another person?
And, you know, when you're jamming with someone, you might want to stop and change it orerase it.
(15:55):
But it developed really quickly into something that really became an intuitive thing forthe person at the end, also receiving stuff from other people was just amazing.
It was inspiring to get all these parts coming in from another part of the world thinking,my God, that's just coming from, you know, 15,000 kilometres away, whatever.
(16:18):
And the realization of that really hit really quickly.
And I thought, this is amazing.
This is something that no one's ever done before.
That's right.
And it's probably worth describing again briefly the interface.
So obviously the Dragon interface, we've talked about how you got notes and so, and I'vejust learned myself, you could actually play in things like bass via MIDI, is, which is
brilliant.
And then obviously it was intrinsically connected and Steve, you're from a programmingbackground, feel free to roll your eyes at how badly I described this.
(16:47):
But essentially it was connected to a chat room where you instigated the commands as faras sharing tracks and that for me.
Just probably your better place to describe it.
Describe how that worked.
Yeah.
Well, I think, I think the first thing behind it, I mean, everybody said this couldn't bedone because there was no way to play in real time with anyone across the internet because
(17:10):
of the lag.
But the way they got around it was by having everything in a loop.
So you play something in.
when you're happy with it, you press send and then it would synchronize the next timearound the loop.
so, so it actually made it as you could use it for performance as well as, you know,creating songs.
So I think that was, that was probably the real innovation was getting a head around howto get away from that real time nature of things.
(17:34):
And it worked, worked really well.
But yeah, as you said, the backend, I guess, of it was this chat room and it just storedthe information was coming in and then just send it out to everybody else and synced it
up.
And it was, it was one that I'd argue is one of its strengths.
And I'm not really a fan with a lot of the current jamming software, but I'm hoping someof them have the similar thing because the like in a real band, half the fun is the
(17:58):
camaraderie and the hang and the hang was a huge part of what being in Red's rocket wasabout.
And I said, I feel like it was 50 or 60 of us originally.
And it certainly grew that hanging in that chat room.
And for those
youngins amongst us.
This is literally a text based chat room.
And then as things evolved, we had that amazing application called see you see me that youcould have grainy black and white pixelated video to see what each other was doing across
(18:26):
your mind.
It was a core part of it, wasn't it?
I how long I don't actually recall the explicit times each of you are involved, Mike, whendid you sort of dip out of ResRockit sort of after two or three years?
I can't remember.
I remember it all sort of came to a climax with this, the CD, we were going to release acommercial track and, you know, the parts were written, the songs had been written.
(18:50):
I don't know if they'd actually mixed them yet, but that just, it all came to that headwith, you know, the cut, basically, how is this all going to be divided up and who was
going to get what out of the sales?
And really then I thought this is probably not for me.
The fun of it's been taken out because of the...
corporate side of it and people wanting to actually monetize it.
(19:13):
I felt, yeah, I think I'll leave them to deal with that.
And so, and I'm really keen to put some other context around that.
So yeah, it was really exciting at the time that some of the music that was generated outof these jam sessions, and they happened all times of the day, and particularly for us
Australians, are interesting times of the night quite regularly.
(19:34):
And so there were, I think it was around 12 songs
that were agreed upon and, I've only briefly mentioned Will and Tim and, and Canton ofmatters, the founders, but just singling out Tim brand is an example.
If you Google Tim brands name, he has had a stellar career and still has a stellar careeras a, an amazing producer.
(19:54):
And, that was to the full with res rocket.
And there were 12 songs, I'm assuming and not putting words in Tim's mouth.
Cause I'm not sure, but I know the album as such was at least mixed.
don't know whether it was ever mastered.
I've certainly got a copy of the mixed version.
And, you know, I only played a small role on two or three of the songs, but I think all ofus, you know, had had roles in that sounded amazing, sounded new, sounded different.
(20:20):
And I do want to emphasize that the issues over how it would work financially wascertainly not necessarily sitting with
res rocket as such, it was just one of those more because there was so many of usinvolved.
Everyone had different perceptions on how that should work and yeah, resolution wasn'table to become too.
think that's probably a diplomatic way of saying it, Steve, no pressure on you.
(20:44):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, I think the thing as well to, to sort of realize is in context with this, thatthey were building a software company as well.
And so there was significant investment coming into that side of it.
And so this was, we had offices in
in London, was one in Santa Fe and in San Francisco as well.
And so there were a lot of people involved with a lot of money that it was, it was gettingpretty complicated.
(21:09):
yeah.
I mean, res rocket played a big role in your life in that you moved from Queensland toLondon and then spent a number of years there.
And then you did, did you, you ended up in the U S as well, didn't you?
With the sort of, yeah, the second phase I like to think of it, which is rocket network.
funded by Paul Allen and I assume others.
(21:30):
And yeah, but being based out of San Francisco at that stage, you know, Well, those coupleof years before the internet crash, the internet company crash.
It was an amazing time.
I had the privilege of going over there and that that app was actually allowing people touse audio data.
Again, Steve, do you want to briefly describe how that works?
(21:52):
Because it was sort of articulating with software that we all still use today.
Yeah.
mean, back then, that was the dot-com boom.
mean, obviously it turned into a bust as well, but it was an incredible time, particularlyto be in San Francisco where all this money was flowing in.
it was like, the railroad had just been invented basically.
(22:12):
And so there was just money pouring in for anything that had anything to do with theinternet.
so you heard stories of people chartering private jets to go for meetings and then turningup and they got the day wrong.
you know, just...
crazy, crazy stuff, you know, and I don't know the amount of money that was pumped intoResRocket, but it was tens of millions.
(22:33):
And I mean, we had a magazine, had staff, full-time editors and journalists working onstuff.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
mean, had superstar artists turning up in the office to come see us and play with.
And I mean, was a really, really crazy time.
But yeah, in terms of kind of what happened,
your written question there is that the software did get bundled in to Pro Tools intosomething called Digi Delivery.
(23:02):
So that really is my understanding now is that's mainly used for video.
It still exists today, but it's used for sending like high quality versions of like videofilms as they're being made, know, the dailies and that sort of stuff.
Even prior to that, I know the first iterations of the audio version, just for those thatout there that use either
(23:22):
Well, what is now Logic Pro, Logic, Cubase and Digital Performer, I think were the threethat essentially it was set up on websites you would log in and you could use the Rocket
Network plugin and you could have your Cubase or Logic session open.
And it did essentially how we described except you could now record your audio, pleaseclick on a button, it would upload and sync with the other person's logic.
(23:47):
I think it had to be on the same platform for memory.
I don't think it would cross go like with Cubase.
and so on.
But yeah, it was it was another big step forward.
And just going to your point about the money with the dot com boom.
mean, I had the privilege of being employed, I think, I'm going to guess and say nearlytwo years or at least a year as an online support facilitator, I was working a day job.
(24:10):
And then after hours, I was paid what for me was a fortune back then it was 20 US dollarsan hour to help people use the software and
with the exchange rate, was like 40 bucks an hour.
And I thought it doesn't get any better than this.
I'm making music.
I'm on line in a virtual bed and I've been paid 40 bucks an hour to do it.
Doesn't get any better than that.
(24:31):
Mike, did you ever try the audio version?
I think you tried some of that.
can't recall.
Yeah, I did dip into it.
Obviously with the whole wanting to do stuff acoustically with drums, but that part of itreally appealed to me.
you know, internet, got faster.
It started to look like it was going to be possible to
play live drum tracks down and stuff like that.
But it was around the sort of time I also sort of dipped the toe out of it.
(24:53):
I didn't really get a full feel of how that ended up transpiring.
Yeah, no, that's good.
And so, I mean, I think, well, as it said about in 2003, it was acquired and that was theend of it sort of as a separate entity, so to speak.
So it certainly affected a lot of people.
There are a lot of people employed, Steve, as you mentioned, particularly towards the endin San Francisco and so on.
(25:15):
and that it's still a community of people that somewhat keep in touch, which is wonderful.
And I've still got some friends from those times, including you two, of course.
And the reason we were chosen aside from our amazing chops, and now I've discoveredbecause we're on the other end of the world, we all had sort of backgrounds in technology.
And I'm really keen to just explore with both of And I'll start with you, Mike.
(25:39):
You have played, like me, played in bands for...
basically most of your life as an adult.
But I do want to raise an issue that we used to joke about many years ago, but you only 24hours ago sent me a video of it.
I actually regret joking about it because it's bloody amazing.
(25:59):
Tell us about the Mike Wilcox, if not trademarked, deserves to be trademarked, drum suit.
Right, we have talked about it for years and it's the elusive no one's ever seen drumsuit.
Which I will not take credit for coming up with the idea but Mick Fleetwood definitely wasthe first person I ever saw in Fleetwood Mac play a piece of clothing we'll call it that
(26:24):
had triggers built into it.
So at some stage during their live performances he would hop out behind the kit, come outthe front with a vest on and he would simply be tapping certain hot spots we'll call them
and they'd be triggering sounds and it just fastened off of how is this happening and Ilike it was no
internet around to Google these sort of things.
So I was quite into technology with drumming.
(26:47):
I bought triggers and Simmons drums and pad eighties and anything I'll get my hands onthat was remotely percussive electronic based.
And I was experimenting in live situations, doing recordings, all sorts of stuff.
And I thought, I'm going to build one of these suits.
I'm going to work out how he did it with trial and error.
So as bare bones as I could get, I went to an army disposal place.
(27:10):
I bought a jumpsuit.
with camo jumpsuit, thought this will look great on stage.
what triggers electronic pulses?
And piezo transducers happen to be a fantastic cheap way to trigger a percussive kind ofelement anyway.
And they're like, you know, $2, $3.
So I thought, great, I'm going to start with these and they're relatively robust.
(27:33):
you know, being hit, they're not going to break straight away.
And then I thought, right, now I need to trigger some sort of sounds.
this Roland Pad 80 I had, which is built in pads you can play with sticks, also had someexternal inputs with eight quarter inch jacks, which could lead to other pads or any other
kind of triggered sources.
So I built a custom loom.
(27:54):
I made a mod work to Telstra at the time.
And he said, look, I've got this really solid loom with about 30 cables inside.
I thought that is fantastic.
I'm going to wire it all up.
from, you know, quarter inch jacks inputs into a pad 80 to a 30 meter cable, which wasgoing to just take me around the stage because I was going to perform like, you know, Nick
(28:17):
Fleetwood.
And I got my mum to sew in these Piazzo transducers into various hotspots in thisjumpsuit.
And it was just trial and error where they were going to sit and where they would staywithout moving.
And just a bit of finessing about the trigger.
(28:38):
sensitivity and a lot of with drum triggering is the double, double triggering.
Like if you hit this one, it's not going to trigger that one.
And eventually came up with something that sounded great.
the sound source trigger was a Alesis D4, which is probably one of the biggest industrystandard sound modules for drums.
So the suit went into the pad 80, the pad 80 triggered via MIDI, the Alesis drum soundmodule.
(29:05):
I had around my chest I had two, around my abdomen I had two and in my hips I had two.
So essentially I had a kick in the snare and had a tom and a crash and I don't know youguys have heard of EPROM chips but I had a special device that I got a guy to, I sent him
(29:28):
samples, audio samples like a reverse snare was a really popular thing back in the 80s andI said can you put a reverse snare onto an EPROM
whack it in there and this device would again be like a source.
whenever I hit this particular thing, it wouldn't go to the Elisa's D4, it would go tothis EEPROM device.
I took a lot of stuff to gigs.
It was crazy.
(29:48):
I'd sit at my normal drum kit and take another hour to set up all the electronics.
But just as proof of concept, Dave saw it last night and it kind of worked.
mean, I don't think people...
necessarily believe what was happening on stage was happening because it was quite aunique, know, but yeah, the action, we make the sounds, so it had to be true.
(30:10):
Yeah.
It sounded truly amazing.
And obviously Mike was part of a band that had, legitimate notoriety, you know, as a greatband back at the time and they sounded great.
And it was a brilliant cover that I've seen of, Def Leppard pour some sugar.
mean, it sounded just top notch.
really did sound good.
So yeah, look, I'm trying to convince Mike to put it up on YouTube somewhere so I can linkto it, but we'll see how that goes.
(30:33):
It is truly amazing.
I don't know about that.
No, I know.
And the other thing I want to talk about, Mike, before I jump back to Steve, is obviouslyin your background and those that are regular listeners of our podcast or watch viewers of
our podcasts that stay right to the end know that I give you a shout out as one of ourgold sponsors of the show.
(30:54):
And I think those that do listen will know, always say, and if you want really top-notchmixing and mastering work, Mike from Midnight Mastering is the guy to go to and that I
highly recommend him because you have in fact mixed and mastered two of my albums.
And obviously we go back a long way, but you've got a stellar production career that goesback what, 25, 30 years?
(31:17):
Yeah, I've been on both sides of the studio in a very, you know,
high level capacity doing everything from runner to doing production, system production,mixing and I'm really taking a real liking to mastering.
That's kind of my end game, if you know what I mean.
(31:38):
It seems to be that you found what you really like doing and I think a lot of people thatit's possibly the most important process for any kind of mixing and mastering process.
I like to call myself the polisher.
How's that sound?
It's good.
You get that mix that just needs a little bit of polish, a little bit of magic that needsmixing.
(31:59):
So I really take a lot of pride in giving someone's final audio production the best it canpossibly sound.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
And you mentioned that you've been on both sides of the studio.
You've obviously had some really serious success, whether it was with The Vagrants withLazy Susan, which I'll be linking to.
I mean, I owe my...
(32:19):
my total non-career as a musician, the few fun bits I've had partly are due to you.
I mean, I got to help out on one lazy Susan album that was a highlight in my career.
It's just, yeah, you've obviously played a lot of live gigs.
So mean, given we are a podcast for keyboard players and gigging musicians, a lot of them,mean, looking back, what are some of the things you've learned as a live performing
(32:42):
musician?
Michael, it's a big question, but.
where do you start?
gear.
You've just got to have good gear.
I don't know how much to say.
Don't ever cheap out on gear.
you're playing a lot, don't look for the cheapest version of what you need.
If you want a reliable setup and you want it to sound the best it can every time, just buythe best you can afford.
(33:07):
mean, it's the best advice I can give anyone that's really thinking about.
You've got to get big to sounds because it can.
Yeah, great.
And Steve, speaking of musicians, musicians,
I always dreamed growing up that the ideal combo, particularly in the eighties, was to beable to play keyboards well and be a sax player.
Well, you are both.
(33:27):
So I'm jealous.
so tell us about, obviously you did programming, like you did all sorts of computerscience related stuff.
You're working broadly in that industry still, but throughout that whole time, includingthe rocket stuff, you've kept a really active career in music.
And we're going to link to your amazing
project, Red Mercury, maybe start with that, but link in all the other stuff you've doneover the years in that respect.
(33:54):
yeah.
Well, I I, I remember when I left high school, I, I wanted to go and do music at theuniversity and my parents said to me, no, you know, don't get a real job kind of thing,
you know.
So I ended up going to university doing computer science, but I managed to somehow throughall the stuff I was doing, link it back to create something or other along the way.
(34:14):
in my
final year for my honors year, wrote music software, I a sample and wrote a sequencer anda few things like that.
So that's actually stood me in really good stead.
with the Rocket Project, as you said, I came over to London in a technical capacity morethan anything else.
And it was really, I mean, I came over just to try and get close to what was going on.
(34:34):
Because I think like anybody, you just kind of think, if I'm here, somehow I'll make it,I'll be famous and everything.
you know, the reality is that I've kind of been sort of fame adjacent, you know.
I've made a cup of tea for Kylie Minogue, but I've never been on a reporter.
(34:54):
In some ways, it's been a bit frustrating.
The good thing, I suppose, is that by being involved in the tech side of it, I've had agood career, which has allowed me to buy the gear.
It's gone all into buying lots of hardware and stuff like that.
I've sold a few things over time, which I
(35:14):
I now regret now about the price of the house.
I do remember you talking about it.
What was one of the ones you sold and you've looked back?
There was some amazing piece of gear.
Yeah.
Well, probably the one that really comes out, as I can think of as a Jupiter 8.
I had one of those and I sold it for a thousand dollars and they're worth, I looked at itthe other day, they're worth about 15,000 pounds.
(35:39):
And I actually
My one was autographed by the keyboard player from the band Chicago and a big rotation hisentire life.
It's worth an absolute 14.
So someone's got it and they probably bought themselves a nice house out of it.
Yeah.
But yeah, but then I've been over here in the UK again for the past 10 years.
So I came back.
(36:00):
mean, I think the interesting thing is that everyone I've talked to who's been involved inRes Rocket, really was, it's kind of made
a quite a lasting impact on their lives.
even though was sort of a short time, think everyone's gone and remembers it as being areally pivotal moment in their careers or their life.
So that was one of reasons I came back here and thought, well, I'll try and see if I canrekindle that magic without seeming like a dad playing in a garage.
(36:31):
And so tell us more about Red May Creek because the stuff
that you've got there on Spotify and Apple Music and so on.
It is amazing.
it's getting, you know, it's had a lot of streams and particularly compared to my stuff.
Tell us about your approach now and how you do go about making music.
And also equally importantly, the videos, because the videos you've released for a coupleof them are amazing as well.
(36:53):
Well, I decided it was finally time to actually do something creative because I've reallybeen talking about it for years.
Just like we are now, you know, talking about all this great stuff I've done in the past.
I had nothing to point at.
to actually prove that I was actually a musician.
So I thought I'd better sit down and actually write some stuff.
But I went and enrolled in, there's a place here in London called Point Blank MusicSchool, went and did the mixing mastering course there.
(37:19):
I was, I mean, yeah, I was kind of all right.
I was good from the technical point of view, but I mean, to then actually get good atproduction, that would really help to go and get some formal qualifications.
that helped.
But yeah, recently I've got into modular gear, which is this set here, which is somethingI've really, really enjoyed.
it's going back to hardware, but it's kind of made up of all these little bits that youbuy individually.
(37:45):
And you can basically build your own synthesizer the way you want it.
So I end up doing loads of kind of weird sound processing and stuff to create new soundeffects and that kind of thing.
So so Red Mercury is really just kind of an outlet for me to do whatever.
you know, comes to mind whether any of it's kind of commercially relevant, I don't know,but I'm doing this thing.
(38:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I've heard our addictive modular can be, I've mentioned before on this podcast, and wehad Sarah Bell read on the show once who is an educator in this area, and she creates her
own amazing modular stuff.
And yeah, it is, dangerous.
How do you control yourself?
Like how tempted are you on a
(38:28):
daily basis to go and buy more, more modules.
it's quite easy.
You can just run out of money.
So, no, I mean, what I've done, I've got these two racks here that I've only got a certainamount of slots in them.
that kind of falls.
So if anything else that I need, I've got to pull something else out, know, that kind ofkeeps you in one spot.
(38:49):
Good point.
Good point.
And the other one, Steve, is I know you've done a lot of session work over the years and Ilove that, that to me is fame adjacent because that's certainly.
that applies to me as well.
And so tell us about when we met in London about six weeks ago, you had a great story.
I don't want to talk it up too much to put the pressure on, but there was a great storyabout how you were employed for some session work that didn't quite turn out how you
(39:14):
expected.
Yeah.
Well, when I came over here, I thought I'd try and supplement my income doing some sessionwork as a sax player.
And I can't remember how I of advertised myself, but
I ended up getting these quite high profile jobs, which I was quite surprised about.
And I went along to one which was, they had the whole backing singers from the Lighthousefamily and there was the drummer from Sade or something.
(39:40):
I'm like, wow, these people are really good.
And did a couple of those gigs and I think I did all right.
mean, got, yeah, mean, who knows, actually thinking back, but.
But I subsequently found out that there was a guy in London whose name is Steve Gregory,who's very, very famous sax player.
He played on careless whisper for George Michael in amongst other things.
(40:04):
And so basically what had happened is I'd turned up and taken his work.
Yes.
So I do apologize.
Obviously stood the test of time.
It's great.
Yeah, so anyway, someone's probably going around saying, well, you think your sex playingis a bit off, but.
No, I'm sure it wasn't.
(40:25):
I'm sure it wasn't.
No, that's an amazing story.
Now I'm going to, I apologize.
And I haven't warned either of you guys, but I'm actually going to apply our usual guestquestions to each of you as well.
So starting with you, Mike, is there a memorable on stage train wreck?
Doesn't matter which outfit, when it's happened, where something's gone just horrificallywrong that you can look back on now and laugh.
(40:53):
If it's ever a nightmare, it's playing a click track.
mean, I'll confess the bands I've played in for many years have a lot of click tracks, thebetter or worse, there's two sides to that whole argument.
you know, and I'm obviously monitoring click as a drummer.
And if the guitarist misses a chorus or a mid-eight or a bridge or something, you know,that's the end of that.
(41:16):
That's a train wreck for the rest of the song.
Unfortunately, I'm in control of the backing track so I can actually just stop it andwe're live for the rest of the set.
But they're regular train wrecks, Love it.
Yeah, I can understand that.
Steve, any that come to mind for you?
I was just thinking actually, I'm glad you asked me a second because it me an opportunityto think of some.
(41:37):
I mean, I do remember one, I had to give a technical demonstration of what sort of musictechnology was all about.
was, fortunately, was only at the high school, but they were proud of
thousand people there and I was on stage with all the keyboards and everything.
I was using the EPS, in Sonic EPS, to run the whole thing.
(42:00):
had the sequencer and all samples on it.
And the hard driver raised itself just as I went in.
And so I literally couldn't load anything.
so it was like having to do stand-up comedy and just trying to keep people, you know, talkabout music rather than actually
doing it, you know.
That one's the one that probably wakes me up at night thinking about that was one of theworst things I've ever Yeah.
(42:25):
God.
Yeah.
No, I'm hearing you.
Yeah.
I think the only other thing I was going to say is just that one thing that was a realeye-opener for me, particularly coming here to London was just the professionalism and the
level of the musicians here that are working.
I mean,
previous idea, I might go my keyboard player and I'm going my way through it.
(42:49):
But I mean, I wouldn't even admit to it with some level of these people aren't they justthey're unbelievable.
We recently just got that Red Med 3 project over lockdown.
It had always been my dream to work with the Symphony Orchestra.
And I found out that there are all these classical musicians who couldn't work throughCOVID.
And so as a result, someone very entrepreneurial over in Eastern Europe
(43:13):
got together these incredible musicians and they put together a symphony orchestra and youcould rent it.
Rent them sort of for an hour at a time and they buy a block and you can get an 80 pieceorchestra.
So we used them for that and I've never seen musicianship like this in my life.
They sat down with the sheet music that I'd produced and played it first time perfectly.
(43:36):
And that was a take.
Then they were done.
It was just incredible.
Yeah.
Cause have you ever been smack bang in the middle of an orchestra, Steve or Mike?
Of course you would have.
And cause, cause, and apologies again to listeners.
And, I think I've mentioned this once before, maybe on a live stream.
(43:59):
I've only done it once, but I was in a production of Jesus Christ superstar in a 43 pieceorchestra is the synthesizer player for those little bits and pieces.
And there's one song, can't remember which it was where I don't play it all, but the wholeorchestra plays at full volume.
That was such an eye opener to me on the power of an orchestra coming from a rock bandbackground.
like it actually, there's something better than a rock band and it's an orchestra in fullflight.
(44:22):
If you're sitting in the middle of it, just amazing.
Absolutely.
so no, great story, Steve.
Thank you.
And then the, the other, well, actually going back to your fame adjacent comment and goingback to also the rocket network, we did get to demonstrate, the software to some really
notable
people.
(44:44):
And obviously again, this was, well, at least in the early days was pre cameras and thesee you see me sometimes you might've been able to see them, Steve, I didn't have the
bandwidth to be able to use see you see me.
So my recollections is I think I had the pleasure of demoing amongst many others.
It's not as if I was demoing.
I think Stevie Wonder and BB King were my two.
(45:07):
Any ones that stand out for you?
Joseph Riani was a big one.
Yeah.
wow.
He came to the office while we were there.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we, was a demo we did at NAMM, I think it was, which is the music conference inLA.
And we had, yeah, Joseph Riani playing guitar, Stevie Wonder playing piano.
(45:28):
And I got to play my wind controller, which is the electric sax along with them.
So that was probably definitely a life highlight.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Mike, Mike, were you involved in any of those demos?
I'm sure you were the Stevie Wonder one of the no.
I remember being with demo, but not to some, you know, I just remember getting it.
(45:50):
I remember getting up at like four o'clock one morning and it was, I, I, I could be wrongand apologies to any rocket network people that end up hearing this and I've got BB King
wrong, but my strong recollection is it was four o'clock in the morning for BB King.
but I could be right.
It doesn't seem obvious he would be a person to come and check out virtual internetsoftware like jamming software, but that's my recollection.
(46:12):
So apologies if I got that wrong.
Anyway, so yeah, that's the fame adjacency.
I think you need to trademark that term.
And so now we'll jump into one of our, essentially our last question, which we call thequick fire 10.
So 10 short and sharp answers to 10 quick questions.
and I'll do I'll ask you both each time starting with you Mike each time and then Steve sothe first one is first album you ever heard Mike?
(46:39):
definitely Back in Black.
wow.
album that really hit home we'll say.
Good Steve.
it would be Oxygen by John McElhase.
Yeah nice.
Most important pre-gig ritual.
(46:59):
I know Mike, you play a few more gigs and probably both Steve and I combined, but what'ssomething you have to do before a gig to feel like you're settled for the gig?
Check everything's plugged in properly.
You're such a tech man.
That's great.
Steve?
Yeah, well, I don't play live so much anymore, but as far as sax playing, definitely behaving multiple reads because I'd no doubt break one.
(47:22):
So that'd be something.
Yeah.
One question we asked, which doesn't really apply to the three of us because we all haveday jobs, but if you hadn't have been a musician, what do you think your career choice
would have been aside from your current day job?
I, in the audio field, would have always dreamt of being in post-production for MotionPicture.
(47:48):
I've watched endless amounts of docos on Lucas Productions and the endless amounts of...
It's just a fantastic career that I would love to have done.
Steve?
Yeah, for sure.
Probably visual effects.
mean, again, some of stuff I'm doing now, just because I've been frustrated, never did itfor real.
(48:12):
So I'm going back trying to do my own little versions of it, yeah, post-produce and film,I think.
Yeah, great.
And Mike, when you are using keyboards, do you use the transpose button or do you changekeys in your head?
Fast pose all the way, baby.
Look, I'm going to segue in there because I'm fully in sympathy and you're actually, we'rea witness to one of my most humiliating episodes in music ever.
(48:38):
And you won't recall this at all, but when I helped out on whatever the Lazy Susan albumwas and we were at the Billy Field Studio, remember the name of the studio.
And I'd practice whatever song it is that you guys wanted me to play.
I turned up there having learnt it in a particular key and one of you said, no, now we'regoing to play it in this other key on this piano.
(49:04):
So there was no transpose no, a real piano.
Yeah.
And there was no transpose key obviously on the piano.
it's the most humiliating thing ever in front of four guys.
I totally respect it.
I had to say, I'm really sorry, but I can't.
do that on the fly.
just can't.
And so we traipsed up the stairs.
(49:26):
Mike, I'm not sure it was you or one of the other guys to Billy Field himself, who livedabove the studio and asked him for a keyboard so that I could use a piano and a keyboard
with the transpose button.
So there you go.
You were a direct witness to one of my most humiliating moments.
I bet you that you don't recall that at all.
look, I vaguely remember there being a drama, but I didn't know it was about the TV beingstaged on the last minute.
(49:49):
There you go.
Steve, yeah, what, what I assume you're an adjust on the fly guy.
yeah, but I mean, if you write your own music, you just keep it at the same pace.
So that's right.
Good call.
No, I can, I can, but I mean, I don't, I don't really read music.
I sort of just, well, I sort of do, I read chords, you know, and then I play the, play themelodies from by year.
(50:14):
So I mean, I'm not, my theory is not as good as it should be really.
It's enough to get by for what I need.
Yeah, would kill to be a sight reader, but sadly.
name a song, Mike, that you used to love, but you've played it to death now.
give me a 20 albums worth if you really need me to.
(50:36):
KSAN, I don't know, it's the first one.
God.
Yeah, good call.
KSAN's definitely a call.
Steve?
Well, I think for me, it would have to be Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop.
I used to play that on the piano at school to impress the girls.
I actually learned to play it with the right hand and the left hand at the same time.
(50:58):
And I don't know anyone else who can do that.
So that's probably one of my great, great life skills.
I'm sure there's lots of musicians out there.
So it is impressive you're doing both hands, Steve.
I know the right hand only and I still at band practice in my current band in betweensongs.
I'll do that to annoy my bandmates.
So I think that's a good, that's my favorite gig you've ever done Mike.
(51:23):
The first one that comes to mind is actually a support act.
Being located in Tassie where I've lived for the majority of my life, we get internationalacts very, very rarely.
the band I was in at the time, even with a drum set, ironically, we got offered a spot toopen for Rick Astley.
wow.
I thought, being the biggest gig we've ever done, and the biggest venue that...
(51:47):
as many as ever had and I'm thinking we've hit the pinnacle this is it I could just stopnow and see and like 15 years ago you wouldn't have admitted that but Rick Astley is now
like he's like not redeemed himself but he's considered a really well-rounded amazingmusician yeah he's great yeah so that's a really cool gig yeah Steve what about you
(52:10):
favorite gig you've ever done I think depends what you mean by ever done
Well, in terms of what I was involved in, I think we had the band Bush, I don't know ifyou'd recall, they're back from the mid-90s, they came to our office and they played a gig
in the office with us just sort of around sitting in our office chairs and that was justincredible to be involved in.
(52:35):
yeah, that was probably the highlight I think.
definitely.
Very cool.
Favourite city you've ever played?
San Francisco would be for me, I think.
Mike?
Just Sydney, just the kind of pub life in Sydney was fantastic before the whole lockdowntook over.
exactly.
(52:56):
Favorite music documentary or movie, Well, I'm going to say the Lucas making ofpost-production has been one of the best docos I've ever seen.
There you go.
Nice.
Steve?
I just got done watching one on Netflix.
It was about Camden, which is a suburb here in London.
It was about all the musicians that have come through there.
(53:18):
there's one pub in particular called Dublin Arms, I think it's called.
There's an owner there who's basically just let anyone have a go and get up and put theirband there.
And there's been so many famous bands that have come through and had their origin justfrom this one particular pub.
So that was a really good one I saw lately.
Amazing.
Yeah, hadn't heard of that one.
Great.
(53:39):
And then name one thing you'd like to see invented that would make your life as a keyboardplayer easier.
Well, I mean, I've had in mind for a long time to build a piece of software into asynthesizer for...
(53:59):
telling you, I'm about it, but what I want to do is to basically take what you would do in3D
designing something like, you know, a big long concrete pile with an air compressor on oneend and a tubular on the other end or something and, and turn that into an actual musical
instrument so that you could design stuff in 3D and then play it for real.
(54:20):
So it's been something I've, yeah, it come back to work on in the future, but I reckonthat'd be, that'd be cool.
I've never seen anything like that in a synthesizer yet.
No, trademark that ASAP.
Mike.
I guess I'd love to see somehow some sort of emergence of keyboard as an instrument andAI.
(54:44):
Where that could go.
It could lead to, not just to make your life easier, but to enhance what you already do.
Yeah.
Particularly what you're going to play, know, the world's the oyster really.
In my case, it'd be, there's a solo coming up, AI, can you do that for me, please?
I've got a...
Bit of inside knowledge on that and that is definitely coming.
(55:05):
yeah, doing some consultancy for a sense company at the moment.
Looking at that.
Yeah.
Well, all right.
Yeah, I'm a perfect guinea pig because I can't solo to save my life.
very last question.
A favorite non musical activity or hobby.
What keeps you sane when you're not making music?
(55:26):
Mike.
Probably not be a surprise you don't It's very cool.
Steve?
Yeah, photography and film, I think.
That'd be one thing.
If I can't do music, I'll be doing film and that kind of thing.
I like the visual stuff almost as much as the music really.
Now look guys, can't thank you enough.
(55:47):
It's been absolutely amazing chatting with you.
I mean, it still freaks me out that we've all known each other since 1994.
All three of us have never been in the same room.
Steve and I have only been in the same room only six weeks ago.
Mike and I have had to put up with each other physically for many years, which has beengreat.
cannot say, and look, Red Mercury will definitely be linking to, and I haven't plugged,Mike and I have a little project that we're very proud of and purely my fault hasn't been
(56:16):
active the last six months.
Do check out Midnight Fields.
I'll also link to that.
And so we've released four or five songs with that.
If you're more of an ambient fan, I mean, I love Steve's stuff.
What genre would you place yours in?
I just don't want to be super generic and say EDM.
It's so much more than that.
What genre would you place?
Drum and bass and progressive house, like trance and sort of stuff.
(56:40):
Yeah.
No, amazing stuff.
And ours is certainly a little bit more on the down low, Mike, I think it's fair to say.
Absolutely.
It's, but again, we enjoy it.
It's a pleasure working with you on that.
So you look, can't thank you both enough.
Here's onwards and upwards to the next 40 years of our career.
And we can sit on a veranda one day and go, you young weavers, have no idea how hot it wasback in the day.
(57:14):
And there we have it.
I hope you enjoyed that slightly different episode.
and Steve are such great guys.
I'm proud to call them friends.
and it was just a real buzz talking about the old days, but in this case, as keyboardplayers out there, it's, it's always worth being aware of some of the more cutting edge
stuff either at the present or in the past.
And this is definitely in the past, but as Steve and Mike mentioned, it's sort of stilltraveling through to today.
(57:41):
And just before we recorded Steve.
mentioned, I'll try and find the website that essentially there was a genealogy or afamily tree of, of this technology and the rocket software is one of the progenitors of
what across so many different things, streaming services for movies and so on.
So yeah, it's extreme measure of pride that I've played a very, very small part in whatwas a much bigger piece of work.
(58:08):
And obviously I wasn't running the show by any stretch of imagination.
So, but yeah, it was just lovely to revisit that time.
So I hope you enjoyed that extra episode.
We'll be back again in a couple of weeks.
Again, as always, a big shout out to a Gold and Silver supporters.
Mike, you've just heard lots about Midnight Mastering.
Please do give him a go if you're after some high quality mixing and mastering.
(58:30):
I do honestly vouch for the quality of his work.
It is amazing.
We have Tammy from Tammy's Musical Studio.
Thank you, Tammy, as always.
Appreciate your support.
Dave and the team at the music player.com forums, which as an aside was one of thepartners way back then with the rocket software.
And that's how I got first joined the music player.com forums.
(58:52):
So I'm still a proud member 20 plus years later.
And then last, but definitely not least, Dewey Evans from the lovely country of Wales.
Dewey's about to come up on a live stream that we're going to do in a week or so.
thank you, sir, for your support.
Thank you to all of you out there that do continue to listen.
(59:15):
hope you're enjoying the show and keep on playing in the meantime.
Hello and welcome to the keyboard Chronicles podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host David Holloway and I'm thrilled as always to be here with you.
it's a little bit of a special episode.
This one I've just had the pleasure of speaking for an hour with Mr.
Steve Gregory and Mr.
Mike Wilcox.
Now, Steve and Mike, as you'll hear are long-term friends, although I only met one of themfor the first time face to face after 25 years, about six weeks ago.
(00:37):
And Mike, who those who regularly listen may know as Mike from midnightmastering.com, ofour gold sponsors.
and I have been friends for many, many years, both in the physical and virtual realms.
So as you'll hear, we were involved in an incredibly innovative project for its timecalled Res Rocket Surfer, which then became Rocket Network.
(01:00):
As you'll hear, there were quite...
a fascinating history of the people that worked on it.
The three of us, in the case of Steve, he was an employee and Mike and I were helping outas testers of the software.
It was a fascinating journey with a piece of software that probably was before its time.
And as you may or may not be aware, there are some great virtual jamming solutions nowonline to allow people from remote distances to make music with each other.
(01:32):
It's been a pleasure making music with these two gentlemen for so many years and I hopeyou enjoy the interview because there's lots of history in there and I'll talk to you at
the end of the show.
(01:54):
I'm super pleased to be talking to two of the sexiest gentlemen alive.
How are you, Steve and Mike?
Very well, Dave.
No pressure.
So as I've just explained in the introduction, Steve, Mike and I go back a long, longtime, although Steve and I physically met for the first time only about six weeks ago.
(02:16):
And Mike and Steve have never met at all until 10 minutes ago, which is pretty impressive,isn't it?
Yes.
So, yeah, lovely to have you both on board.
as I also explained in the introduction, we're going to talk a little bit about both yourcareers to date and then how the three of us came together in what is, and it's documented
(02:38):
on the internet, so it must be true, the world's first virtual band.
So, but I will start off, I'll start with you, Mike.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and look, people players out there be warned, Mike'sactually a drummer.
but let's not hold that against him.
Mike, tell us about your musical upbringing.
I got introduced to music, like a lot of guys, at a very young age, primary school.
(03:02):
I got pushed into clarinets and flutes and all kinds of woodwind instruments at primaryage.
it wasn't something I was interested in, but I was convinced by my parents, if you stickto this, we'll let you play the drums.
I thought, right, I'll get through the scales.
I'll work through the majority of the basic stuff, which really
gave me foundation in music theory anyway, which I needed.
(03:25):
And by the time I got to high school, I was allowed to get drum kit, progressed from thepots and pans, got proper lessons and found my love of, you know, how's it to be a
musician for the future, we'll say.
But when you say not a keyboard player, if I had a second instrument, which is my composedmusic, I definitely do play the keys to compose.
(03:45):
But
Performing wise I'm definitely a drummer.
Yeah, that's very true.
And so the theory stuff Mike, I mean Steve you may have done theory I'm a total heathenwhen it comes to theory.
So you did do a bit of theory that you felt that's that's probably served you well to thisday.
Absolutely, absolutely.
think if any foundation to be able to write music is to understand scales, know, thedifferent various chords you need to do and just time signatures anything that's going to
(04:09):
help you build a foundation in, know, creation of music.
I know a lot of guys write without even knowing how to
You know, put the fingers on a guitar and they come up with a fantastic sounding chord.
And I'm sure that's a skill that anyone can grab, but just having the proper foundationsis always a great way to sort of get your bass in place.
True.
My favorite key to this day remains J major.
(04:32):
Steve, tell us about your musical upbringing.
Yeah, well, I grew up in New Zealand and I was at a school in a place called Nelson, whichis basically a brewery.
farming community, but they happened to have a really good music teacher at the highschool that I was at.
And out of that one school, were marching bands and pipe bands and brass bands and allsorts of stuff.
(04:57):
so everybody that went there, was a regular state school, had to do two instruments.
That was just part of the requirement.
was like 1500 people.
so yeah, I was introduced, I was playing probably like you, Mike.
I was playing clarinet, which I hated and had to walk around with the
saxophone players until I was allowed to play that.
(05:18):
so that's what I started with.
But we had a guy come in and demonstrate this thing called MIDI.
And this is back in the mid 80s.
And he brought the synthesizers and Simmons drums and this old computer thing.
And I was absolutely blown away with what you could do.
And so that's really what started me.
I was probably, I don't know, 13, 14 or something, guess then.
(05:41):
And yeah, got into that and then started
saving up for a synthesizer and I was in sort of involved with computers as well and sowas programming as well then.
That was back a long way.
What were you programming on back then Steve?
Commodore 64.
I was writing music.
(06:01):
I was writing music where the Commodore 64 was terrible.
You'd literally type in every single note and you'd hear it's terrible.
But good foundation.
That's funny.
And look, because we're all of a similar age, I'm not going to disclose all our ages.
I'll just say that Mike's 92 and I'm 28, but roughly the same age.
So let's take it forward to from our childhoods to 1994.
(06:28):
And I get a bit fuzzy on the years here.
I remember I joined the internet as it was or Compuserve in 1994, but I actually got
I thought given we're a technological trio in our involvement with ResRocket and thenRocket Network, I got an AI platform to do a summary of ResRocket and I thought I'd read
(06:51):
it for our viewers and listeners, because it's nice and short and sharp.
I do want to put a huge disclaimer though, I'm not sure some of the numbers and quotes areverifiable or accurate.
So I actually feel like the numbers that were first members were lower than what AIquotes.
I take it with a grain of salt, but otherwise it seems
pretty accurate.
So the Res Rocket Surfer project was launched in November 1994.
(07:13):
That seems about right.
It's considered the first virtual online band with a thousand members communicatingthrough a mailing list and FTP server.
That seems inflated, but you know, not probably that far off.
Founded by musicians Willie Henshel and Tim Brandt, true.
The project began by posting messages and sound files on Newsnet.
Now I'm going to stop there.
I don't recall that.
(07:34):
I think that's well using it.
have a feeling is where I found out about it.
Yeah.
mean, I, we weren't using it for music, but I certainly found out about it off one ofthose news channels, think early on.
All right.
So I'll give the benefit of doubt there.
And then it said later expanding to an FTP and website.
(07:55):
Now, obviously, I'm talking about the Moo in a minute.
That seems roughly right.
By January 1995, the project had amassed 600 members, even though it said it started witha thousand.
So don't ask me how that works.
Go AI.
Fostering a community of collaboration and creativity.
Absolutely.
By April 95, Hinchel and Brand joined forces with Canton Baker and Matt Moller.
(08:17):
Absolutely.
Two Chicago University students who created a MIDI Moo, a virtual environment enablingmulti-user real-time
music making across the internet.
Our real time is debatable, but it was brilliant.
So this collaboration led to the development of the, well, we called it the Dragon, butthe DRGN or the Distributed Real Time Groove Network software.
(08:39):
The project continued to evolve and in July 1997, ResRocket Surfers Dragon app wasunveiled at the Intel New Music Festival, I'm assuming it was, offering subscribers access
to public recording studios, jam sessions and chat rooms.
That's more like the, yeah, that's the second sort of iteration of it.
(09:00):
In April, 98, ResRocket Surfer caught the attention of Paul Allen, who the nerds out thereof our age would know was one of the co-founders of Microsoft, who provided significant
funding leading to the birth of what was then known as ResRocket Surfer became RocketNetwork.
And it was capable of fully professional quality recording of real live musicians.
(09:22):
And we'll talk about the reality of that too, which was quite cool.
However, as the project grew, it obviously got bigger and more corporate.
And then it was acquired by DigiDesign slash Avid in March 2003, marking the end of it asa solely online collaboration platform.
There you go.
(09:42):
Is that a fair summary, gents?
Yeah.
You can hit the dots there, Yeah, that's right.
So let's go back to 1994.
I mean, for those of us that are old enough out there listening and
watching most of you either weren't on the internet or it only just started.
Well, at least in an Australian context guys, mean, Steve, I know you're at uni.
(10:03):
You probably were on the internet, what from say 93 at the earliest.
I was, I was at uni in 1990.
I was doing computer science.
we, we had internet, but it was probably one of the earliest.
Yeah.
And Mike, would have been slightly after that.
yeah.
28 bit dial up.
Absolutely.
(10:24):
You 28, you got what that was, that was like, I know when rocket first started, and we'lltalk about it in a second.
The first dragon client I downloaded, I remember was 501 kilobytes.
And I was trying to download it on a 9,600 board modem.
And I think it took like 45 minutes to download.
Yes, you're actually right.
(10:46):
remember the 9,600.
So, all right, so we're all relatively new to the internet.
It was a new thing worldwide, everyone knows.
And so to hear, so I'm really interested, not so much in my story, but your stories of howyou got involved, but I'll just quickly tell mine.
Back in the days of real paper magazines with glossy covers, there was an industry magwhere Willie Henshel as one of the co-founders was interviewed talking about this amazing
(11:13):
new piece of software called Dragon.
It had only been in existence for, you know, six months to 12 months.
And he just gave an email address saying anyone out there that wants to join and getinvolved in testing this, I'm putting words in his mouth, dropped me an email.
So I went home to my little 9,600 board motive and sent him an email.
(11:34):
And like you guys was the three to my understanding, the first three Australians to everget involved with it.
And my understanding is the initial iteration, there were only about 50 or 60 of the corejammers.
But enough about me.
Mike, I'll start with you.
Do you remember how, if at all, how you got involved?
Yeah, like I think it was a similar story.
(11:54):
There was an expression of interest put out there.
It seemed like an amazing, innovative thing to do.
Being a drummer, I wasn't quite sure how I'd been involved in it.
I had keyboards, I knew how MIDI worked, I had the internet at its infancy.
And I thought, look, I'm just going to say, I'm here.
I'm in Australia, do you want someone from Australia to participate?
And I think they were bang on for getting someone on the opposite side of the world tojust test this thing out, you know?
(12:20):
So yeah, they got back to me pretty quickly with, you know, we were definitely interestedin having you on board.
actually never thought of that.
Here I was, I thinking of my huge talent that got me the job.
But that's quite right.
They'd be wanting to test.
They'd be wanting to test the traffic on the other side of the world.
guinea pigs.
no, just guinea pigs.
That's devastating, but true.
Steve, tell me about how you got involved.
(12:40):
It's funny because I was just thinking the same thing because I was thinking I auditioned,know, thinking I was this incredible musician, but I was probably, you know, when you
narrow it down to the number of people in Australia who had who had the internet and whowere musicians and connect the keyboard, there was probably only about four.
And just on the auditions, probably worth covering again.
(13:01):
feel like we're three old men on a veranda talking about the olden days, but it's stillworth it.
Auditioning in that respect.
And I did the same.
There was no, actually, I don't know about you.
Maybe I did call London on the phone at the time.
I can't remember when there was a phone call involved.
There might've been, I think I might've chatted before after.
but the actual audition was using the Dragon client.
(13:23):
So I may or may not with the video version of this podcast be able to give a screenshot ofthe Dragon.
I've got to see if it's around it.
I'm sure it is somewhere.
All it was, actually rather me talking, Steve, describe the Dragon, what the originalversion was like and what it involved.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it was written in a pretty high level kind of scripting language.
(13:45):
And from a technical point of view, it wasn't particularly complicated at all.
And it was, it was, was a bit like something like hypercard or one of those things on theMac years ago, which had a dreadful interface.
But, you just kind of clicked on a few buttons with your mouse and did things.
But the thing that it could do is it could actually record many data coming in, which wasthe information from a synthesizer that controls, but we're basically getting information
(14:09):
on what notes you were playing.
So you could, you could record a very small amount of a loop effectively and send thatacross the internet.
And it was like on a grid.
Yeah, it was like on a grid.
It was on a grid, was it?
Was it a four bar grid?
I can't remember.
that's a good point.
I think there were 16 notes.
Yeah, so I can't remember that was one bar.
(14:29):
Yeah, it was a four.
So you literally connected your MIDI module to your computer, which back in the day was afive pin DIN connection into, case of my Mac, whatever that awful the connection was into
the Mac.
And then you connected your MIDI device and from memory you just clicked on
checkboxes.
(14:50):
You cross-boxes.
did it sequentially.
Yeah, tapped it in.
Yeah, step time.
But it did support some level of real-time recording because I remember I played a bassline and then I actually played it.
That was my audition.
So it wasn't just clicking on it.
that just shows you the level I was working at.
Mike, what do you recall about the first time?
(15:12):
Did you, I assume, auditioned as well and the first time you used the app, what did youthink?
Yeah, look, going back to Steve's sort of introduction to MIDI, I got my toes in withAmiga and Atari's and, you know, that kind of really basic MIDI recording software.
And the introduction is I thought, what is this?
(15:35):
How are they going to make this into some sort of professional, you know, studioapplication?
And not really understanding where it was going, I thought, this is not going be possibleto get a band together.
And wondering exactly
Is my part going to be heard by just another person?
And, you know, when you're jamming with someone, you might want to stop and change it orerase it.
(15:55):
But it developed really quickly into something that really became an intuitive thing forthe person at the end, also receiving stuff from other people was just amazing.
It was inspiring to get all these parts coming in from another part of the world thinking,my God, that's just coming from, you know, 15,000 kilometres away, whatever.
(16:18):
And the realization of that really hit really quickly.
And I thought, this is amazing.
This is something that no one's ever done before.
That's right.
And it's probably worth describing again briefly the interface.
So obviously the Dragon interface, we've talked about how you got notes and so, and I'vejust learned myself, you could actually play in things like bass via MIDI, is, which is
brilliant.
And then obviously it was intrinsically connected and Steve, you're from a programmingbackground, feel free to roll your eyes at how badly I described this.
(16:47):
But essentially it was connected to a chat room where you instigated the commands as faras sharing tracks and that for me.
Just probably your better place to describe it.
Describe how that worked.
Yeah.
Well, I think, I think the first thing behind it, I mean, everybody said this couldn't bedone because there was no way to play in real time with anyone across the internet because
(17:10):
of the lag.
But the way they got around it was by having everything in a loop.
So you play something in.
when you're happy with it, you press send and then it would synchronize the next timearound the loop.
so, so it actually made it as you could use it for performance as well as, you know,creating songs.
So I think that was, that was probably the real innovation was getting a head around howto get away from that real time nature of things.
(17:34):
And it worked, worked really well.
But yeah, as you said, the backend, I guess, of it was this chat room and it just storedthe information was coming in and then just send it out to everybody else and synced it
up.
And it was, it was one that I'd argue is one of its strengths.
And I'm not really a fan with a lot of the current jamming software, but I'm hoping someof them have the similar thing because the like in a real band, half the fun is the
(17:58):
camaraderie and the hang and the hang was a huge part of what being in Red's rocket wasabout.
And I said, I feel like it was 50 or 60 of us originally.
And it certainly grew that hanging in that chat room.
And for those
youngins amongst us.
This is literally a text based chat room.
And then as things evolved, we had that amazing application called see you see me that youcould have grainy black and white pixelated video to see what each other was doing across
(18:26):
your mind.
It was a core part of it, wasn't it?
I how long I don't actually recall the explicit times each of you are involved, Mike, whendid you sort of dip out of ResRockit sort of after two or three years?
I can't remember.
I remember it all sort of came to a climax with this, the CD, we were going to release acommercial track and, you know, the parts were written, the songs had been written.
(18:50):
I don't know if they'd actually mixed them yet, but that just, it all came to that headwith, you know, the cut, basically, how is this all going to be divided up and who was
going to get what out of the sales?
And really then I thought this is probably not for me.
The fun of it's been taken out because of the...
corporate side of it and people wanting to actually monetize it.
(19:13):
I felt, yeah, I think I'll leave them to deal with that.
And so, and I'm really keen to put some other context around that.
So yeah, it was really exciting at the time that some of the music that was generated outof these jam sessions, and they happened all times of the day, and particularly for us
Australians, are interesting times of the night quite regularly.
(19:34):
And so there were, I think it was around 12 songs
that were agreed upon and, I've only briefly mentioned Will and Tim and, and Canton ofmatters, the founders, but just singling out Tim brand is an example.
If you Google Tim brands name, he has had a stellar career and still has a stellar careeras a, an amazing producer.
(19:54):
And, that was to the full with res rocket.
And there were 12 songs, I'm assuming and not putting words in Tim's mouth.
Cause I'm not sure, but I know the album as such was at least mixed.
don't know whether it was ever mastered.
I've certainly got a copy of the mixed version.
And, you know, I only played a small role on two or three of the songs, but I think all ofus, you know, had had roles in that sounded amazing, sounded new, sounded different.
(20:20):
And I do want to emphasize that the issues over how it would work financially wascertainly not necessarily sitting with
res rocket as such, it was just one of those more because there was so many of usinvolved.
Everyone had different perceptions on how that should work and yeah, resolution wasn'table to become too.
think that's probably a diplomatic way of saying it, Steve, no pressure on you.
(20:44):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, I think the thing as well to, to sort of realize is in context with this, thatthey were building a software company as well.
And so there was significant investment coming into that side of it.
And so this was, we had offices in
in London, was one in Santa Fe and in San Francisco as well.
And so there were a lot of people involved with a lot of money that it was, it was gettingpretty complicated.
(21:09):
yeah.
I mean, res rocket played a big role in your life in that you moved from Queensland toLondon and then spent a number of years there.
And then you did, did you, you ended up in the U S as well, didn't you?
With the sort of, yeah, the second phase I like to think of it, which is rocket network.
funded by Paul Allen and I assume others.
(21:30):
And yeah, but being based out of San Francisco at that stage, you know, Well, those coupleof years before the internet crash, the internet company crash.
It was an amazing time.
I had the privilege of going over there and that that app was actually allowing people touse audio data.
Again, Steve, do you want to briefly describe how that works?
(21:52):
Because it was sort of articulating with software that we all still use today.
Yeah.
mean, back then, that was the dot-com boom.
mean, obviously it turned into a bust as well, but it was an incredible time, particularlyto be in San Francisco where all this money was flowing in.
it was like, the railroad had just been invented basically.
(22:12):
And so there was just money pouring in for anything that had anything to do with theinternet.
so you heard stories of people chartering private jets to go for meetings and then turningup and they got the day wrong.
you know, just...
crazy, crazy stuff, you know, and I don't know the amount of money that was pumped intoResRocket, but it was tens of millions.
(22:33):
And I mean, we had a magazine, had staff, full-time editors and journalists working onstuff.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
mean, had superstar artists turning up in the office to come see us and play with.
And I mean, was a really, really crazy time.
But yeah, in terms of kind of what happened,
your written question there is that the software did get bundled in to Pro Tools intosomething called Digi Delivery.
(23:02):
So that really is my understanding now is that's mainly used for video.
It still exists today, but it's used for sending like high quality versions of like videofilms as they're being made, know, the dailies and that sort of stuff.
Even prior to that, I know the first iterations of the audio version, just for those thatout there that use either
(23:22):
Well, what is now Logic Pro, Logic, Cubase and Digital Performer, I think were the threethat essentially it was set up on websites you would log in and you could use the Rocket
Network plugin and you could have your Cubase or Logic session open.
And it did essentially how we described except you could now record your audio, pleaseclick on a button, it would upload and sync with the other person's logic.
(23:47):
I think it had to be on the same platform for memory.
I don't think it would cross go like with Cubase.
and so on.
But yeah, it was it was another big step forward.
And just going to your point about the money with the dot com boom.
mean, I had the privilege of being employed, I think, I'm going to guess and say nearlytwo years or at least a year as an online support facilitator, I was working a day job.
(24:10):
And then after hours, I was paid what for me was a fortune back then it was 20 US dollarsan hour to help people use the software and
with the exchange rate, was like 40 bucks an hour.
And I thought it doesn't get any better than this.
I'm making music.
I'm on line in a virtual bed and I've been paid 40 bucks an hour to do it.
Doesn't get any better than that.
(24:31):
Mike, did you ever try the audio version?
I think you tried some of that.
can't recall.
Yeah, I did dip into it.
Obviously with the whole wanting to do stuff acoustically with drums, but that part of itreally appealed to me.
you know, internet, got faster.
It started to look like it was going to be possible to
play live drum tracks down and stuff like that.
But it was around the sort of time I also sort of dipped the toe out of it.
(24:53):
I didn't really get a full feel of how that ended up transpiring.
Yeah, no, that's good.
And so, I mean, I think, well, as it said about in 2003, it was acquired and that was theend of it sort of as a separate entity, so to speak.
So it certainly affected a lot of people.
There are a lot of people employed, Steve, as you mentioned, particularly towards the endin San Francisco and so on.
(25:15):
and that it's still a community of people that somewhat keep in touch, which is wonderful.
And I've still got some friends from those times, including you two, of course.
And the reason we were chosen aside from our amazing chops, and now I've discoveredbecause we're on the other end of the world, we all had sort of backgrounds in technology.
And I'm really keen to just explore with both of And I'll start with you, Mike.
(25:39):
You have played, like me, played in bands for...
basically most of your life as an adult.
But I do want to raise an issue that we used to joke about many years ago, but you only 24hours ago sent me a video of it.
I actually regret joking about it because it's bloody amazing.
(25:59):
Tell us about the Mike Wilcox, if not trademarked, deserves to be trademarked, drum suit.
Right, we have talked about it for years and it's the elusive no one's ever seen drumsuit.
Which I will not take credit for coming up with the idea but Mick Fleetwood definitely wasthe first person I ever saw in Fleetwood Mac play a piece of clothing we'll call it that
(26:24):
had triggers built into it.
So at some stage during their live performances he would hop out behind the kit, come outthe front with a vest on and he would simply be tapping certain hot spots we'll call them
and they'd be triggering sounds and it just fastened off of how is this happening and Ilike it was no
internet around to Google these sort of things.
So I was quite into technology with drumming.
(26:47):
I bought triggers and Simmons drums and pad eighties and anything I'll get my hands onthat was remotely percussive electronic based.
And I was experimenting in live situations, doing recordings, all sorts of stuff.
And I thought, I'm going to build one of these suits.
I'm going to work out how he did it with trial and error.
So as bare bones as I could get, I went to an army disposal place.
(27:10):
I bought a jumpsuit.
with camo jumpsuit, thought this will look great on stage.
what triggers electronic pulses?
And piezo transducers happen to be a fantastic cheap way to trigger a percussive kind ofelement anyway.
And they're like, you know, $2, $3.
So I thought, great, I'm going to start with these and they're relatively robust.
(27:33):
you know, being hit, they're not going to break straight away.
And then I thought, right, now I need to trigger some sort of sounds.
this Roland Pad 80 I had, which is built in pads you can play with sticks, also had someexternal inputs with eight quarter inch jacks, which could lead to other pads or any other
kind of triggered sources.
So I built a custom loom.
(27:54):
I made a mod work to Telstra at the time.
And he said, look, I've got this really solid loom with about 30 cables inside.
I thought that is fantastic.
I'm going to wire it all up.
from, you know, quarter inch jacks inputs into a pad 80 to a 30 meter cable, which wasgoing to just take me around the stage because I was going to perform like, you know, Nick
(28:17):
Fleetwood.
And I got my mum to sew in these Piazzo transducers into various hotspots in thisjumpsuit.
And it was just trial and error where they were going to sit and where they would staywithout moving.
And just a bit of finessing about the trigger.
(28:38):
sensitivity and a lot of with drum triggering is the double, double triggering.
Like if you hit this one, it's not going to trigger that one.
And eventually came up with something that sounded great.
the sound source trigger was a Alesis D4, which is probably one of the biggest industrystandard sound modules for drums.
So the suit went into the pad 80, the pad 80 triggered via MIDI, the Alesis drum soundmodule.
(29:05):
I had around my chest I had two, around my abdomen I had two and in my hips I had two.
So essentially I had a kick in the snare and had a tom and a crash and I don't know youguys have heard of EPROM chips but I had a special device that I got a guy to, I sent him
(29:28):
samples, audio samples like a reverse snare was a really popular thing back in the 80s andI said can you put a reverse snare onto an EPROM
whack it in there and this device would again be like a source.
whenever I hit this particular thing, it wouldn't go to the Elisa's D4, it would go tothis EEPROM device.
I took a lot of stuff to gigs.
It was crazy.
(29:48):
I'd sit at my normal drum kit and take another hour to set up all the electronics.
But just as proof of concept, Dave saw it last night and it kind of worked.
mean, I don't think people...
necessarily believe what was happening on stage was happening because it was quite aunique, know, but yeah, the action, we make the sounds, so it had to be true.
(30:10):
Yeah.
It sounded truly amazing.
And obviously Mike was part of a band that had, legitimate notoriety, you know, as a greatband back at the time and they sounded great.
And it was a brilliant cover that I've seen of, Def Leppard pour some sugar.
mean, it sounded just top notch.
really did sound good.
So yeah, look, I'm trying to convince Mike to put it up on YouTube somewhere so I can linkto it, but we'll see how that goes.
(30:33):
It is truly amazing.
I don't know about that.
No, I know.
And the other thing I want to talk about, Mike, before I jump back to Steve, is obviouslyin your background and those that are regular listeners of our podcast or watch viewers of
our podcasts that stay right to the end know that I give you a shout out as one of ourgold sponsors of the show.
(30:54):
And I think those that do listen will know, always say, and if you want really top-notchmixing and mastering work, Mike from Midnight Mastering is the guy to go to and that I
highly recommend him because you have in fact mixed and mastered two of my albums.
And obviously we go back a long way, but you've got a stellar production career that goesback what, 25, 30 years?
(31:17):
Yeah, I've been on both sides of the studio in a very, you know,
high level capacity doing everything from runner to doing production, system production,mixing and I'm really taking a real liking to mastering.
That's kind of my end game, if you know what I mean.
(31:38):
It seems to be that you found what you really like doing and I think a lot of people thatit's possibly the most important process for any kind of mixing and mastering process.
I like to call myself the polisher.
How's that sound?
It's good.
You get that mix that just needs a little bit of polish, a little bit of magic that needsmixing.
(31:59):
So I really take a lot of pride in giving someone's final audio production the best it canpossibly sound.
Yeah.
Yeah, I agree.
And you mentioned that you've been on both sides of the studio.
You've obviously had some really serious success, whether it was with The Vagrants withLazy Susan, which I'll be linking to.
I mean, I owe my...
(32:19):
my total non-career as a musician, the few fun bits I've had partly are due to you.
I mean, I got to help out on one lazy Susan album that was a highlight in my career.
It's just, yeah, you've obviously played a lot of live gigs.
So mean, given we are a podcast for keyboard players and gigging musicians, a lot of them,mean, looking back, what are some of the things you've learned as a live performing
(32:42):
musician?
Michael, it's a big question, but.
where do you start?
gear.
You've just got to have good gear.
I don't know how much to say.
Don't ever cheap out on gear.
you're playing a lot, don't look for the cheapest version of what you need.
If you want a reliable setup and you want it to sound the best it can every time, just buythe best you can afford.
(33:07):
mean, it's the best advice I can give anyone that's really thinking about.
You've got to get big to sounds because it can.
Yeah, great.
And Steve, speaking of musicians, musicians,
I always dreamed growing up that the ideal combo, particularly in the eighties, was to beable to play keyboards well and be a sax player.
Well, you are both.
(33:27):
So I'm jealous.
so tell us about, obviously you did programming, like you did all sorts of computerscience related stuff.
You're working broadly in that industry still, but throughout that whole time, includingthe rocket stuff, you've kept a really active career in music.
And we're going to link to your amazing
project, Red Mercury, maybe start with that, but link in all the other stuff you've doneover the years in that respect.
(33:54):
yeah.
Well, I I, I remember when I left high school, I, I wanted to go and do music at theuniversity and my parents said to me, no, you know, don't get a real job kind of thing,
you know.
So I ended up going to university doing computer science, but I managed to somehow throughall the stuff I was doing, link it back to create something or other along the way.
(34:14):
in my
final year for my honors year, wrote music software, I a sample and wrote a sequencer anda few things like that.
So that's actually stood me in really good stead.
with the Rocket Project, as you said, I came over to London in a technical capacity morethan anything else.
And it was really, I mean, I came over just to try and get close to what was going on.
(34:34):
Because I think like anybody, you just kind of think, if I'm here, somehow I'll make it,I'll be famous and everything.
you know, the reality is that I've kind of been sort of fame adjacent, you know.
I've made a cup of tea for Kylie Minogue, but I've never been on a reporter.
(34:54):
In some ways, it's been a bit frustrating.
The good thing, I suppose, is that by being involved in the tech side of it, I've had agood career, which has allowed me to buy the gear.
It's gone all into buying lots of hardware and stuff like that.
I've sold a few things over time, which I
(35:14):
I now regret now about the price of the house.
I do remember you talking about it.
What was one of the ones you sold and you've looked back?
There was some amazing piece of gear.
Yeah.
Well, probably the one that really comes out, as I can think of as a Jupiter 8.
I had one of those and I sold it for a thousand dollars and they're worth, I looked at itthe other day, they're worth about 15,000 pounds.
(35:39):
And I actually
My one was autographed by the keyboard player from the band Chicago and a big rotation hisentire life.
It's worth an absolute 14.
So someone's got it and they probably bought themselves a nice house out of it.
Yeah.
But yeah, but then I've been over here in the UK again for the past 10 years.
So I came back.
(36:00):
mean, I think the interesting thing is that everyone I've talked to who's been involved inRes Rocket, really was, it's kind of made
a quite a lasting impact on their lives.
even though was sort of a short time, think everyone's gone and remembers it as being areally pivotal moment in their careers or their life.
So that was one of reasons I came back here and thought, well, I'll try and see if I canrekindle that magic without seeming like a dad playing in a garage.
(36:31):
And so tell us more about Red May Creek because the stuff
that you've got there on Spotify and Apple Music and so on.
It is amazing.
it's getting, you know, it's had a lot of streams and particularly compared to my stuff.
Tell us about your approach now and how you do go about making music.
And also equally importantly, the videos, because the videos you've released for a coupleof them are amazing as well.
(36:53):
Well, I decided it was finally time to actually do something creative because I've reallybeen talking about it for years.
Just like we are now, you know, talking about all this great stuff I've done in the past.
I had nothing to point at.
to actually prove that I was actually a musician.
So I thought I'd better sit down and actually write some stuff.
But I went and enrolled in, there's a place here in London called Point Blank MusicSchool, went and did the mixing mastering course there.
(37:19):
I was, I mean, yeah, I was kind of all right.
I was good from the technical point of view, but I mean, to then actually get good atproduction, that would really help to go and get some formal qualifications.
that helped.
But yeah, recently I've got into modular gear, which is this set here, which is somethingI've really, really enjoyed.
it's going back to hardware, but it's kind of made up of all these little bits that youbuy individually.
(37:45):
And you can basically build your own synthesizer the way you want it.
So I end up doing loads of kind of weird sound processing and stuff to create new soundeffects and that kind of thing.
So so Red Mercury is really just kind of an outlet for me to do whatever.
you know, comes to mind whether any of it's kind of commercially relevant, I don't know,but I'm doing this thing.
(38:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I've heard our addictive modular can be, I've mentioned before on this podcast, and wehad Sarah Bell read on the show once who is an educator in this area, and she creates her
own amazing modular stuff.
And yeah, it is, dangerous.
How do you control yourself?
Like how tempted are you on a
(38:28):
daily basis to go and buy more, more modules.
it's quite easy.
You can just run out of money.
So, no, I mean, what I've done, I've got these two racks here that I've only got a certainamount of slots in them.
that kind of falls.
So if anything else that I need, I've got to pull something else out, know, that kind ofkeeps you in one spot.
(38:49):
Good point.
Good point.
And the other one, Steve, is I know you've done a lot of session work over the years and Ilove that, that to me is fame adjacent because that's certainly.
that applies to me as well.
And so tell us about when we met in London about six weeks ago, you had a great story.
I don't want to talk it up too much to put the pressure on, but there was a great storyabout how you were employed for some session work that didn't quite turn out how you
(39:14):
expected.
Yeah.
Well, when I came over here, I thought I'd try and supplement my income doing some sessionwork as a sax player.
And I can't remember how I of advertised myself, but
I ended up getting these quite high profile jobs, which I was quite surprised about.
And I went along to one which was, they had the whole backing singers from the Lighthousefamily and there was the drummer from Sade or something.
(39:40):
I'm like, wow, these people are really good.
And did a couple of those gigs and I think I did all right.
mean, got, yeah, mean, who knows, actually thinking back, but.
But I subsequently found out that there was a guy in London whose name is Steve Gregory,who's very, very famous sax player.
He played on careless whisper for George Michael in amongst other things.
(40:04):
And so basically what had happened is I'd turned up and taken his work.
Yes.
So I do apologize.
Obviously stood the test of time.
It's great.
Yeah, so anyway, someone's probably going around saying, well, you think your sex playingis a bit off, but.
No, I'm sure it wasn't.
(40:25):
I'm sure it wasn't.
No, that's an amazing story.
Now I'm going to, I apologize.
And I haven't warned either of you guys, but I'm actually going to apply our usual guestquestions to each of you as well.
So starting with you, Mike, is there a memorable on stage train wreck?
Doesn't matter which outfit, when it's happened, where something's gone just horrificallywrong that you can look back on now and laugh.
(40:53):
If it's ever a nightmare, it's playing a click track.
mean, I'll confess the bands I've played in for many years have a lot of click tracks, thebetter or worse, there's two sides to that whole argument.
you know, and I'm obviously monitoring click as a drummer.
And if the guitarist misses a chorus or a mid-eight or a bridge or something, you know,that's the end of that.
(41:16):
That's a train wreck for the rest of the song.
Unfortunately, I'm in control of the backing track so I can actually just stop it andwe're live for the rest of the set.
But they're regular train wrecks, Love it.
Yeah, I can understand that.
Steve, any that come to mind for you?
I was just thinking actually, I'm glad you asked me a second because it me an opportunityto think of some.
(41:37):
I mean, I do remember one, I had to give a technical demonstration of what sort of musictechnology was all about.
was, fortunately, was only at the high school, but they were proud of
thousand people there and I was on stage with all the keyboards and everything.
I was using the EPS, in Sonic EPS, to run the whole thing.
(42:00):
had the sequencer and all samples on it.
And the hard driver raised itself just as I went in.
And so I literally couldn't load anything.
so it was like having to do stand-up comedy and just trying to keep people, you know, talkabout music rather than actually
doing it, you know.
That one's the one that probably wakes me up at night thinking about that was one of theworst things I've ever Yeah.
(42:25):
God.
Yeah.
No, I'm hearing you.
Yeah.
I think the only other thing I was going to say is just that one thing that was a realeye-opener for me, particularly coming here to London was just the professionalism and the
level of the musicians here that are working.
I mean,
previous idea, I might go my keyboard player and I'm going my way through it.
(42:49):
But I mean, I wouldn't even admit to it with some level of these people aren't they justthey're unbelievable.
We recently just got that Red Med 3 project over lockdown.
It had always been my dream to work with the Symphony Orchestra.
And I found out that there are all these classical musicians who couldn't work throughCOVID.
And so as a result, someone very entrepreneurial over in Eastern Europe
(43:13):
got together these incredible musicians and they put together a symphony orchestra and youcould rent it.
Rent them sort of for an hour at a time and they buy a block and you can get an 80 pieceorchestra.
So we used them for that and I've never seen musicianship like this in my life.
They sat down with the sheet music that I'd produced and played it first time perfectly.
(43:36):
And that was a take.
Then they were done.
It was just incredible.
Yeah.
Cause have you ever been smack bang in the middle of an orchestra, Steve or Mike?
Of course you would have.
And cause, cause, and apologies again to listeners.
And, I think I've mentioned this once before, maybe on a live stream.
(43:59):
I've only done it once, but I was in a production of Jesus Christ superstar in a 43 pieceorchestra is the synthesizer player for those little bits and pieces.
And there's one song, can't remember which it was where I don't play it all, but the wholeorchestra plays at full volume.
That was such an eye opener to me on the power of an orchestra coming from a rock bandbackground.
like it actually, there's something better than a rock band and it's an orchestra in fullflight.
(44:22):
If you're sitting in the middle of it, just amazing.
Absolutely.
so no, great story, Steve.
Thank you.
And then the, the other, well, actually going back to your fame adjacent comment and goingback to also the rocket network, we did get to demonstrate, the software to some really
notable
people.
(44:44):
And obviously again, this was, well, at least in the early days was pre cameras and thesee you see me sometimes you might've been able to see them, Steve, I didn't have the
bandwidth to be able to use see you see me.
So my recollections is I think I had the pleasure of demoing amongst many others.
It's not as if I was demoing.
I think Stevie Wonder and BB King were my two.
(45:07):
Any ones that stand out for you?
Joseph Riani was a big one.
Yeah.
wow.
He came to the office while we were there.
Yeah.
So, yeah, we, was a demo we did at NAMM, I think it was, which is the music conference inLA.
And we had, yeah, Joseph Riani playing guitar, Stevie Wonder playing piano.
(45:28):
And I got to play my wind controller, which is the electric sax along with them.
So that was probably definitely a life highlight.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Mike, Mike, were you involved in any of those demos?
I'm sure you were the Stevie Wonder one of the no.
I remember being with demo, but not to some, you know, I just remember getting it.
(45:50):
I remember getting up at like four o'clock one morning and it was, I, I, I could be wrongand apologies to any rocket network people that end up hearing this and I've got BB King
wrong, but my strong recollection is it was four o'clock in the morning for BB King.
but I could be right.
It doesn't seem obvious he would be a person to come and check out virtual internetsoftware like jamming software, but that's my recollection.
(46:12):
So apologies if I got that wrong.
Anyway, so yeah, that's the fame adjacency.
I think you need to trademark that term.
And so now we'll jump into one of our, essentially our last question, which we call thequick fire 10.
So 10 short and sharp answers to 10 quick questions.
and I'll do I'll ask you both each time starting with you Mike each time and then Steve sothe first one is first album you ever heard Mike?
(46:39):
definitely Back in Black.
wow.
album that really hit home we'll say.
Good Steve.
it would be Oxygen by John McElhase.
Yeah nice.
Most important pre-gig ritual.
(46:59):
I know Mike, you play a few more gigs and probably both Steve and I combined, but what'ssomething you have to do before a gig to feel like you're settled for the gig?
Check everything's plugged in properly.
You're such a tech man.
That's great.
Steve?
Yeah, well, I don't play live so much anymore, but as far as sax playing, definitely behaving multiple reads because I'd no doubt break one.
(47:22):
So that'd be something.
Yeah.
One question we asked, which doesn't really apply to the three of us because we all haveday jobs, but if you hadn't have been a musician, what do you think your career choice
would have been aside from your current day job?
I, in the audio field, would have always dreamt of being in post-production for MotionPicture.
(47:48):
I've watched endless amounts of docos on Lucas Productions and the endless amounts of...
It's just a fantastic career that I would love to have done.
Steve?
Yeah, for sure.
Probably visual effects.
mean, again, some of stuff I'm doing now, just because I've been frustrated, never did itfor real.
(48:12):
So I'm going back trying to do my own little versions of it, yeah, post-produce and film,I think.
Yeah, great.
And Mike, when you are using keyboards, do you use the transpose button or do you changekeys in your head?
Fast pose all the way, baby.
Look, I'm going to segue in there because I'm fully in sympathy and you're actually, we'rea witness to one of my most humiliating episodes in music ever.
(48:38):
And you won't recall this at all, but when I helped out on whatever the Lazy Susan albumwas and we were at the Billy Field Studio, remember the name of the studio.
And I'd practice whatever song it is that you guys wanted me to play.
I turned up there having learnt it in a particular key and one of you said, no, now we'regoing to play it in this other key on this piano.
(49:04):
So there was no transpose no, a real piano.
Yeah.
And there was no transpose key obviously on the piano.
it's the most humiliating thing ever in front of four guys.
I totally respect it.
I had to say, I'm really sorry, but I can't.
do that on the fly.
just can't.
And so we traipsed up the stairs.
(49:26):
Mike, I'm not sure it was you or one of the other guys to Billy Field himself, who livedabove the studio and asked him for a keyboard so that I could use a piano and a keyboard
with the transpose button.
So there you go.
You were a direct witness to one of my most humiliating moments.
I bet you that you don't recall that at all.
look, I vaguely remember there being a drama, but I didn't know it was about the TV beingstaged on the last minute.
(49:49):
There you go.
Steve, yeah, what, what I assume you're an adjust on the fly guy.
yeah, but I mean, if you write your own music, you just keep it at the same pace.
So that's right.
Good call.
No, I can, I can, but I mean, I don't, I don't really read music.
I sort of just, well, I sort of do, I read chords, you know, and then I play the, play themelodies from by year.
(50:14):
So I mean, I'm not, my theory is not as good as it should be really.
It's enough to get by for what I need.
Yeah, would kill to be a sight reader, but sadly.
name a song, Mike, that you used to love, but you've played it to death now.
give me a 20 albums worth if you really need me to.
(50:36):
KSAN, I don't know, it's the first one.
God.
Yeah, good call.
KSAN's definitely a call.
Steve?
Well, I think for me, it would have to be Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop.
I used to play that on the piano at school to impress the girls.
I actually learned to play it with the right hand and the left hand at the same time.
(50:58):
And I don't know anyone else who can do that.
So that's probably one of my great, great life skills.
I'm sure there's lots of musicians out there.
So it is impressive you're doing both hands, Steve.
I know the right hand only and I still at band practice in my current band in betweensongs.
I'll do that to annoy my bandmates.
So I think that's a good, that's my favorite gig you've ever done Mike.
(51:23):
The first one that comes to mind is actually a support act.
Being located in Tassie where I've lived for the majority of my life, we get internationalacts very, very rarely.
the band I was in at the time, even with a drum set, ironically, we got offered a spot toopen for Rick Astley.
wow.
I thought, being the biggest gig we've ever done, and the biggest venue that...
(51:47):
as many as ever had and I'm thinking we've hit the pinnacle this is it I could just stopnow and see and like 15 years ago you wouldn't have admitted that but Rick Astley is now
like he's like not redeemed himself but he's considered a really well-rounded amazingmusician yeah he's great yeah so that's a really cool gig yeah Steve what about you
(52:10):
favorite gig you've ever done I think depends what you mean by ever done
Well, in terms of what I was involved in, I think we had the band Bush, I don't know ifyou'd recall, they're back from the mid-90s, they came to our office and they played a gig
in the office with us just sort of around sitting in our office chairs and that was justincredible to be involved in.
(52:35):
yeah, that was probably the highlight I think.
definitely.
Very cool.
Favourite city you've ever played?
San Francisco would be for me, I think.
Mike?
Just Sydney, just the kind of pub life in Sydney was fantastic before the whole lockdowntook over.
exactly.
(52:56):
Favorite music documentary or movie, Well, I'm going to say the Lucas making ofpost-production has been one of the best docos I've ever seen.
There you go.
Nice.
Steve?
I just got done watching one on Netflix.
It was about Camden, which is a suburb here in London.
It was about all the musicians that have come through there.
(53:18):
there's one pub in particular called Dublin Arms, I think it's called.
There's an owner there who's basically just let anyone have a go and get up and put theirband there.
And there's been so many famous bands that have come through and had their origin justfrom this one particular pub.
So that was a really good one I saw lately.
Amazing.
Yeah, hadn't heard of that one.
Great.
(53:39):
And then name one thing you'd like to see invented that would make your life as a keyboardplayer easier.
Well, I mean, I've had in mind for a long time to build a piece of software into asynthesizer for...
(53:59):
telling you, I'm about it, but what I want to do is to basically take what you would do in3D
designing something like, you know, a big long concrete pile with an air compressor on oneend and a tubular on the other end or something and, and turn that into an actual musical
instrument so that you could design stuff in 3D and then play it for real.
(54:20):
So it's been something I've, yeah, it come back to work on in the future, but I reckonthat'd be, that'd be cool.
I've never seen anything like that in a synthesizer yet.
No, trademark that ASAP.
Mike.
I guess I'd love to see somehow some sort of emergence of keyboard as an instrument andAI.
(54:44):
Where that could go.
It could lead to, not just to make your life easier, but to enhance what you already do.
Yeah.
Particularly what you're going to play, know, the world's the oyster really.
In my case, it'd be, there's a solo coming up, AI, can you do that for me, please?
I've got a...
Bit of inside knowledge on that and that is definitely coming.
(55:05):
yeah, doing some consultancy for a sense company at the moment.
Looking at that.
Yeah.
Well, all right.
Yeah, I'm a perfect guinea pig because I can't solo to save my life.
very last question.
A favorite non musical activity or hobby.
What keeps you sane when you're not making music?
(55:26):
Mike.
Probably not be a surprise you don't It's very cool.
Steve?
Yeah, photography and film, I think.
That'd be one thing.
If I can't do music, I'll be doing film and that kind of thing.
I like the visual stuff almost as much as the music really.
Now look guys, can't thank you enough.
(55:47):
It's been absolutely amazing chatting with you.
I mean, it still freaks me out that we've all known each other since 1994.
All three of us have never been in the same room.
Steve and I have only been in the same room only six weeks ago.
Mike and I have had to put up with each other physically for many years, which has beengreat.
cannot say, and look, Red Mercury will definitely be linking to, and I haven't plugged,Mike and I have a little project that we're very proud of and purely my fault hasn't been
(56:16):
active the last six months.
Do check out Midnight Fields.
I'll also link to that.
And so we've released four or five songs with that.
If you're more of an ambient fan, I mean, I love Steve's stuff.
What genre would you place yours in?
I just don't want to be super generic and say EDM.
It's so much more than that.
What genre would you place?
Drum and bass and progressive house, like trance and sort of stuff.
(56:40):
Yeah.
No, amazing stuff.
And ours is certainly a little bit more on the down low, Mike, I think it's fair to say.
Absolutely.
It's, but again, we enjoy it.
It's a pleasure working with you on that.
So you look, can't thank you both enough.
Here's onwards and upwards to the next 40 years of our career.
And we can sit on a veranda one day and go, you young weavers, have no idea how hot it wasback in the day.
(57:14):
And there we have it.
I hope you enjoyed that slightly different episode.
and Steve are such great guys.
I'm proud to call them friends.
and it was just a real buzz talking about the old days, but in this case, as keyboardplayers out there, it's, it's always worth being aware of some of the more cutting edge
stuff either at the present or in the past.
And this is definitely in the past, but as Steve and Mike mentioned, it's sort of stilltraveling through to today.
(57:41):
And just before we recorded Steve.
mentioned, I'll try and find the website that essentially there was a genealogy or afamily tree of, of this technology and the rocket software is one of the progenitors of
what across so many different things, streaming services for movies and so on.
So yeah, it's extreme measure of pride that I've played a very, very small part in whatwas a much bigger piece of work.
(58:08):
And obviously I wasn't running the show by any stretch of imagination.
So, but yeah, it was just lovely to revisit that time.
So I hope you enjoyed that extra episode.
We'll be back again in a couple of weeks.
Again, as always, a big shout out to a Gold and Silver supporters.
Mike, you've just heard lots about Midnight Mastering.
Please do give him a go if you're after some high quality mixing and mastering.
(58:30):
I do honestly vouch for the quality of his work.
It is amazing.
We have Tammy from Tammy's Musical Studio.
Thank you, Tammy, as always.
Appreciate your support.
Dave and the team at the music player.com forums, which as an aside was one of thepartners way back then with the rocket software.
And that's how I got first joined the music player.com forums.
(58:52):
So I'm still a proud member 20 plus years later.
And then last, but definitely not least, Dewey Evans from the lovely country of Wales.
Dewey's about to come up on a live stream that we're going to do in a week or so.
thank you, sir, for your support.
Thank you to all of you out there that do continue to listen.
(59:15):
hope you're enjoying the show and keep on playing in the meantime.
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