Neil Fraser aka Mad Professor
BalatonSound, Hungary - 2009. július 9.
Mad Professor in Hungary 2009
Bly: How has your touring been going on?
MP: Well, you know it’s interesting, we travel the world, go to different countries, play to different people, English people, Spanish people, French people, Japanese people, tall people, short people, men, women, gays and lesbians, heterosexuals, all kinds, decent people, indecent people... It’s going alright.
Bly: Last time you were here, you told us about your plans to retire and reach a mental state of utopia.
MP: Well, I’m getting there, gradually getting there. I still want to retire.
Bly: It’s been around 30 years since you opened your studio. Looking back now, what have been the main lessons for you?
MP: I’ve learned how to treat a decent vocal in a recording, and I’ve learned the importance of balance when it comes to sound. The difference between a good balance and a bad balance could mean the difference between a hit and a flop. So that’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned, where to put everything in the mix. Where to put the drums in the mix, where to put the vocals in the mix.
Bly: Which artists influenced you the most?
MP: My influences come from people like Gamble & Huff, Berry Gordy, Coxsone Dodd, Joe Gibbs and people like that.
Bly: We know you love female voices. Who do you think is the new voice today?
MP: I don’t know so much of the contemporary artists right now, I don’t really listen to the radio much. I still listen to a lot of old stuff. A lot of the voices I listen to were recorded in the 1970s and 80s, and even in the 60s. I still like people like Deneice Williams, Randy Crawford, Candi Staton, Marlena Shaw. I still love those voices. Though in saying that a few nights ago I heard this girl Jennifer Hudson on television, she was singing in the Michael Jackson memorial show, and I thought she was brilliant, so maybe that’s the new voice, because she really sounds good.
Bly: Can you say a few words about Natasja?
MP: Natasja is a girl who I met back in around 1990, when she was 14 years old. We were hitting Copenhagen for the first time and she was there with her freinds, and she said she wanted to come on stage and we should give her a chance, so she took the microphone. Then we kept in touch, brought her to London, she spent a couple of weeks there with me, did some tours, then got signed to a label in Denmark, and started to do various things. Then she left the music and went into horse-riding which was her next passion, and I think she damaged her back and then came back to music. She developed and then she came back to us a few years ago and we did some new recordings, a lot more mature and obviously by then she knew her direction. But then unfortunately the year before last year I heard she got killed in Jamaica.
Bly: You keep going back to Jamaica. Any good voices there?
MP: I don’t think Jamaica has produced that many female artistes as you would have expected. I think the outstanding ones would still be Marcia Griffiths and Judy Mowatt. But I don’t know about today. I think England has produced much more interesting female vocalists than Jamaica, of diversity you know. But I’ll keep listening.
Bly: What are you working on right now?
MP: Right now I’ve just finished a new album, it’s called the Audio Illusions of Dub. That’s gonna be out any day, in fact it should be out today. We didn’t get any copies by the time we left England this morning, but it should be here any minute now.
Bly: You always choose specific themes for the titles of your songs. How does it all come about?
MP: It’s all to do with mediatation and inspiration, with what the sound inspires. There is a mood for a song regardless of what words the song might utter. Like if you take any sound, it could be annoying, it could be mesmerising, it could seductive, it could be anything, if you meditate enough.
Bly: And this time why the theme of illusions?
MP: Because illusion is a very funny word. I mean, I could be under the illusion that this a blue (pointing at a red pack), you could turn around and say it’s red. Just now they asked me about racism. One thing for sure, sometimes someone could say ’Hey, I think that guy is racist, I think my school teacher is racist.’ The school teacher could turn around and say to the kid ’No, you’re on an illusion’ or ’No, you have a chip on your shoulder’. But because this school teacher is not on the receiving end or because a third party is not on the receiving end, they could only say what they know. But the schoolboy who’s on the receiving end, he knows. So you could ask the question, is he under an illusion or is it reality? So it’s a funny word. It depends on where you’re standing, who’s standing and where you’re looking from.
Bly: How do you feel now about the US and Obama?
MP: Well, as you know, we all rejoiced when Obama got in for several reasons. It turned around like the past 400 years of slavery, you know, it’s only in the past 50 years or so that black people in America have really even been able to vote and stuff like that. We could easily take these things for granted and think it’s been there all the time. Only this week we were reminded that MTV didn’t beleive in playing black music until Michael Jackson made a song, and MTV is going on about what... 20-odd years. So it’s not so long, and for it to come to the fact where America, one of the largest countries in the world, has chosen a president of colour I think is great. And I think it’s a great reflection on where America is, because all the countries talk about equal rights and justice and stuff like that but not many practise it, so I think this has really brought America in a light of respect around the world. Especially if you saw what George Bush was doing in the past 7 or 8 years. The thing about Obama is that he is such a great ambassador, such a great spokesman. And I think the image of him and his wife and family is good for America, because America had a lot of apologising to do to the rest of the world. And I think this move is in the right direction.
Bly: Last time you were here, you were talking about perhaps settling in Brazil, how do you feel about it now?
MP: Well, yes we’ve been to Brazil a few times, but we also have this great place in the Gambia. We go back there from time to time, I was there just last week. It’s very nice, beautiful place, beautiful people.