Mix Master Mike Interview

Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 July 2010 10:47 Written by Matt Shea Wednesday, 30 June 2010 10:44

He Has The Tehnology

If you know the Beastie Boys, then you know Mix Master Mike. It’s as simple as that. But the Beasties’ longest serving DJ is really a star for another reason.

Turntablism was for many years one of the last bastions of analogue, a smoky backroom where arguments over white labels, pick-ups and the virtues of the ‘S’-shaped tone arm were the order of the day.

Mix Master Mike was one of those responsible for establishing the artform, but he also helped drag it into the digital age, DJ equipment going through some massive changes since the early 90s when he was busting knuckles with Qbert and Invisibl Skratch Piklz.

“The level of appreciation for the technology is just like, ‘Wow!’” enthuses Mike down the phone line from his home in California. “It comes as a gift for cats like us. I’ve done recording with four-track reel-to-reels and stuff like that, and now you just have everything on your laptop. It’s an amazing breakthrough. I sat in a bedroom with thousands and thousands of cassette tapes, and I made pause mixtapes, and you can imagine how long that shit would take: cue up the tape and pause one and pause another, and now the level of appreciation for the technology – oh man, I’m so gracious for it. It excites me.

“I think DJs like me, DJs like Premier, Flash, X-Men – we’ve carried crates on our backs – we’ve checked in hundreds of records onto the plane. I guess you graduate to the technology and pay dues. And I guess if I could have people carry my records for me, I would still use real records. When I’m with the Beastie Boys I’m using real records – there’s still something about seeing a bunch of records laying all over the place, you know?”

Other than the DMC World Championship-winning turntable skills and his work with the Beasties, Mike is also known for some blistering albums and mixtapes, the most recent of which was his ‘Napalm Rockets’ mix. ‘Rockets’ marked something of a departure for Mike, the mix focussing on dubstep as it blazes through 39 tracks in little over an hour.

“I do shows all over the world – London, Germany – just all over the place, and you pick up things. The first time I was turned onto dubstep was like three or four years ago and the genre kinda stuck with me, you know. There was a lot of it that I didn’t really like, but there was some that was really interesting, like Benga making some crazy shit, and Rusko and Caspa and I thought, ‘Wow, this would be an amazing thing to merge with hip hop. Why not? Why not collide both worlds? It makes a lot of sense.’ For me, I’ll always be a b-boy – I am hip hop – and it’s just about taking other avenues to get back to that. That’s where the inspiration came for ‘Napalm Rockets’.”

Looking to be a little more conventional – in the Mix Master Mike sense of the word – is his new EP, ‘Plazma Ryfle’, which may have hit the streets by the time you read this.

“People have expected there to be a dubstep influence, but not really,” Mike laughs. “It’s a hip hop instrumental but it’s aggressive hip hop. Don’t get me wrong, there are elements of that which would remind you of dubstep, but I’m kinda sticking with the same formula: the crazy, psychedelic instrumental – aggressively-driven, monster beats. It’s just trying to stay true; not trying to pretend. There are cats that are making electro records now that were hip hop back in the day, but for me I want people to know that I haven’t lost touch with where I began.”

Lined up with the EP is the release of a signature set of Mix Master Mike Skullcandy headphones, and on top of mixtapes, EPs and equipment, Mike is also involved in the final stages of development on his Mix Master Mike DJ-to-Go iPhone app. It all means he’s a very busy man, but he was never going to be too busy to make it downunder for Fuzzy’s 10th anniversary of Parklife, where he’ll be joined by Missy Elliot, Groove Armada, The Dandy Warhols and Soulwax, among others.

“You know what, I can’t wait. It’s kinda like a second home: I’ve been to Australia maybe five or six time now doing shows. I’ve got an hour to do something, so for that full hour there’s not going to be any dead time, no recess time. It’s just gonna be a full-on assault.

“It’s cool, because the kids out there don’t care what people think, so they’re not afraid to let loose and jump on each other’s backs. It’s not a thing where, ‘I’m too cool’, or, ‘I just bought new shoes and I don’t want to get them dirty’. They’re in it. I feel they understand the music and they want to be a part of it, and that excites me.”

Mix Master Mike plays Parklife, Saturday September 25 at the Gold Coast Parklands. parklife.com.au