'MY NAME'S JC AND IT'S PLAIN TO SEE...': The Jason
Creasey interview
Jason
Creasey is a classically-trained musician, producer and
composer who owns the London-based music production company Hitsound.
Alongside writing music for TV programmes, film and record / production
companies, Jason will be familiar to Erasure fans for his
stand-out remixes of the Loveboat singles 'Freedom' and 'Moon
And The Sky', as well as his work with Phil Creswick and
Vince Clarke on the Family Fantastic Nice!
album. Mat Smith found five minutes in the talented Mr Creasey's
schedule to ask a few questions...
MAT SMITH : How're things at Hitsound?
JASON CREASEY : Things are going well thanks! I've
been writing and producing a fair amount of material for my production-music
publisher over the last few years. For a long time now, many people
(including composers) in the commercial music world haven't taken
production-music seriously, but I put as much effort into my work
in this area as I do for commercial releases, and whilst I don't
always know which tracks are being used on what TV programme or
commercial, I've seem some great usages (e.g. Sex & The City,
Friends, Will & Grace -you can see what kind of TV I watch!)
all suggesting my efforts have been well received.
MS : Business must be booming then! Any plans
to set up a studio in the States?
JC : Nothing in the US yet I'm afraid! I still have
just the one studio in London. As regards business 'booming', I'd
say that it's just 'ticking along comfortably' thanks. I prefer
it this way because I can put all my energy into the song I'm working
on, rather than be running around like a headless chicken - or delegating
- neither of which I believe are particularly good mental environments
for the creative process to flourish.
MS : Any major recent production credits?
JC : Recently? Primarily the TV credits, a newspaper
'Mail On Sunday' TV commercial in the UK (using one of my production-music
tracks,) and 'Explicit Faith' - a live dance performance by the
British modern-dance performer and choreographer Gaby Agis - which
used a composition of mine for the opening of the performance (www.explicitfaith.com).
I'm very excited about Erasure's forthcoming album
though, and hope I have the opportunity to remix one of their singles
again.
MS : It's over three years since you remixed 'Freedom'
for Erasure, and over two years since your stunning rework of 'Moon
And The Sky', which was a difficult song in its original form. How
did you approach your remix work and how did they come about?
JC : I met Vince via our mutual close-friend Phil
Creswick. The 'Family Fantastic' project (on which we all worked)
was a wonderful collaboration; we all really enjoyed the journey
and had some truly magical moments along the way. At the time, I
mentioned to Vince that I'd love to remix one of his and Andy's
tracks should he want me to. Vince subsequently rang me when 'Freedom'
was assigned as the first release from Loveboat, and said that Mute
Records would be in touch. My remix of 'Freedom' was well received
by both Mute and Erasure's fans, hence the request for me to re-work
'Moon & The Sky'.
My approach to both songs was fairly simple to be
honest. I'm a great believer in the importance of the original song's
identity being retained in a remix. In Erasure's case, this meant
that the harmonic structure, the melody, Andy's voice and Vince's
particularly-characteristic synth parts needed to stay in the new
work. After that, everything else was down to how I felt I could
compliment and enhance those original components. I'm very harmonically
and melodically driven in my own work, so Vince and Andy's songs
are always a joy to work on.
MS : Were you a fan of Erasure before working
with Vince on Nice!?
JC : Yes. Funnily enough, whilst I certainly knew
of Vince and Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Erasure, I hadn't paid incredibly
close attention to his work. My falling in love with Erasure was
in a record store in San Francisco. It was playing 'Don't Say Your
Love is Killing Me' from the album Cowboy. I immediately had to
buy it, and think that Cowboy is one of their best albums. Every
song has a least one section that screams 'hit!' to me! It's awesome
and still one of my favourite albums to date. I had to laugh when
I was in the record store though - that this English tourist –
me - was buying an 'import' of an English act in a US store!
MS : Did this mean that you approached the remixes
differently?
JC : Other than I felt honoured to be remixing Vince
and Andy's work, no.
MS : I have to say that Family Fantastic's Nice!
album was absolutely fantastic (unavoidable pun). How on earth did
that come about?
JC : Thanks! I must say that I perhaps received
more credit than was due. Vince and Phil came up with the 'Family
Fantastic' concept and created the initial ideas for most of the
songs; I then came in to the studio & suggested some alterations
to the songs where appropriate - lyrics & structure-wise - did
some additional programming and production, and then mixed it all.
On some tracks I had greater involvement than that, but on the whole,
[this] is a pretty objective view I think...
MS : What was the atmosphere like whilst recording
the raps for 'Doin' This Thing' for Nice!? If I had been
there, I would have probably been splitting my sides.
JC : Amazing, bizarre, a bit tense [and] hilarious
all rolled into one - we had a great laugh recording the raps! Phil
and Vince were a bit taken aback when it was my turn to try something:
I'm far from being outgoing, so when I started doing my deep Barry
White-ish voice with sexy breaths and sexual innuendos and so on,
the others were more than a bit surprised and pretty amused....
It was a fun bit of escapism from my day-to-day non-sex-god
status!
MS : Are there any plans to record under the FF
guise again?
JC : Nothing concrete at the moment, but I'm sure
it'll happen again at some point in the future. Phil and I are always
working on new songs when we can. Whether they form part of an FF
project or not remains to be decided, but the FF guise is far from
dead. We'll keep you updated with any developments!
MS : I had heard tale of a follow-up album called
Wonderful, but am having even more difficulty tracking this
down compared to the first (which I eventually picked up in the
US). One of the tracks has been sampled and used in a US 12"
dance record by Genderfix, so I guess this confirms its existence.
JC : Yes, Phil and Vince did make a follow-up album
- I wasn't involved other than some audio programming [because]
I was busy on other projects at the time - but I don't think it
was signed to a label for release, unfortunately. I think it's important
that it should be made available though, so I want to discuss with
Vince and Phil how this could be done. Once again, I'll let you
know if I have any news.
MS : Were you disappointed that the Family Fantastic
track 'You Are The Melody' wasn't picked up for Eurovision?
JC : Absolutely... I honestly believe it could've
won, as it's such a strong and uplifting song. It did get very close
to being chosen as the UK entry though. In fact it got through to
the final stage of voting at the BBC before the 'chosen few' went
to public airplay. I just hope that the song gets released at some
point in the future (be it as a FF track or covered by another artist,)
as it's one of the best songs Phil and I have written.
MS : Is there an MP3 of the track somewhere, because
the 20 seconds or so that used to be on the website suggested the
track was really catchy.
JC : Not at the moment, although it's something
else we MUST make available somehow in the future.
MS : How did you get into the music business originally?
JC : The music business is a bloody strange beast
to be honest, and it's very difficult - I think - to formulate how
you're going to get 'into' it.
I've been playing the piano since four, programming
since 15, and grew up knowing that what I wanted to do was - for
want of a better phrase - 'make music'. I had very little idea how
that would manifest itself though. The old adage of 'being in the
right place at the right time' has been very true for me, unfortunately.
I say 'unfortunately' because I wish I had a better answer to help
those that ask me how it's done. I think the best thing anyone can
do is believe in themselves, don't give up, and do their best to
put themselves into situations where they CAN be 'in the right place
at the right time'. That last point is the difficult bit though,
isn't it! So, to answer your question, I met someone who knew someone
who had a friend who knew...
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