Mike Pelanconi on Prince Fatty, reggae and a rare Neve 8068 desk: "fortune favours the brave"

Sound engineer and record producer Mike Pelanconi (better known under his record name, Prince Fatty) got his start in the studio in Brighton, going on to work alongside Snoop Dogg and Rick Rubin in L.A and produce and engineer for reggae legends in the UK. He explains that although moving to London decades ago, he now finds himself back in the south coast where it all began, where he’s been installing an extremely rare Neve 8068 desk into the soon-to-be-opened Seaside Studios. He explains why it’s all AC/DC’s fault…

Your very first studio experience was in Brighton; where are you based now?

I've got a new mixing and mastering room above a venue called the Fox and Firkin in Lewisham in southeast London. It’s one of the hippest live music venues – a lot of cool bands and reggae legends like Horace Andy and Big Youth are playing here. I've made studios before and they'd end up being in little units in hidden, secret back streets that nobody knew about, whereas this is the opposite. 

I'm above a venue and everybody wants to come up and see the place and get involved. I really love live albums and the stage is acoustically designed like a recording studio but with a 600 capacity audience. We're just starting to develop the reputation as somewhere to come to record your live performances, but at studio quality. 

Studios are cool, but there's a certain energy that sometimes is not easy to recreate in a week during regular 10am to 6pm hours. Whereas in the evening with the lights and the crowd, the musicians start to pop a bit better with the energy. The place is buzzing and it's nice to have the studio above that. Also, if I need to borrow a mic stand, I can just go downstairs and grab one. It's pretty handy!

It's not for everybody, but it's fun. If you love deep, deep bass – and I've always loved that – and if you like playing music loud, it’s great. Ultimately, there's nothing more fun than playing reggae music on a big sound system that's just vibrating the hell out the entire neighbourhood. 

When the guys come and play here, the windows in the chicken shop, five doors down, rattle.

What are your memories about your formative studio days?

After leaving school, I did six months of A Levels and then dropped out because I knew I really wanted to be in the studio. I started working in little demo studios, and there was one in Brighton at the time. They used to do lots of jingles for all the radio stations and I got the job doing little edits for all the radio adverts that they used to do; that's how I learned how to edit quarter inch tape. 

Then I moved to London and just started harassing people, writing letters. Actually what gave me my break was going to Denmark Street. I saw a sign on the door that said ‘noise gate’, and I knew that was an audio term so I just pressed the buzzer and asked if it was a recording studio, and they said yes. I said, “I'm looking for a job. Do you need an assistant?” 

They said, “Come inside”. I was very lucky that someone had left a few days before – they really needed someone. That was Rebel MC's studio, and I worked out of the demo studio in the basement. That’s where everything was happening in early UK hip hop.

Across the street there was a record label called Acid Jazz where Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies and all those guys were signed, so then I started doing sessions out of there too. 

N'Dea Davenport from The Brand New Heavies had a solo album deal with a company in America called Delicious Vinyl – at the time they were one of the big hip hop labels – and I was asked to go to America and work with them. 

A few weeks later, I had a work permit and off I went to L.A. I stayed out there for three or four years until Delicious Vinyl got dropped from Capitol Records and the money ran out. After that, to be honest, I was ready to come back to England.

How different was the recording scene in L.A?

It was fun! It was the late ‘90s in Hollywood, so you still had the big old ‘70s studios there like Sunset Sound. I got to do sessions at Capitol Studios, which was pretty special. There was an incredible studio called Sound Castle, which was a new studio, but the guy that built that was an insanely good acoustician, so everybody would be going down there. 

I'd be mixing in one room and then Snoop Dogg would be in the other room. It was quite amazing for me to come from England and suddenly I'm in a studio and Snoop Dogg is in the room next door! Rick Rubin was often there as well, so I got to meet them, see how they worked and hang out and become friends with those guys. It was a good time!

What did you take away from your experiences in L.A?

To be patient with timekeeping, especially with the rappers! It's funny because when I left, my boss was sad. I said to him, “Come on, man, there's loads of great engineers in Los Angeles. 

You'll be okay; you'll find someone to work with”. He said, “Yeah, but Mike, you never complain about anything!” I never complained if people were late, or if the session overrun a couple of hours – I didn't complain. I was just happy to be working.

Your group, Prince Fatty, was inspired by the optimistic, laid-back vibes of Jamaica in the early ‘70s. Where did your interest in reggae begin?

Basically, I love bass! Growing up in the mid-to-late ‘80s, all the people that had vinyl suddenly had CDs, and they didn't really care about vinyls so much. So because I expressed an interest in vinyl and I'd start flicking through the records, family or friends would say – as they had CDs now – I could take the vinyls. By the time I was 13 or 14 I had a really bizarre record collection from all the hand-me-downs from relatives and friends. 

It varied from all the classics like Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin to some crazy jazz music and really weird stuff. I got lucky because my friend’s mum had a Rasta boyfriend and he took her to a record shop and bought her the best 10 reggae albums – even now, they are still the best. 

Fast forward X amount of years later and I'm in her living room and she's like, ‘Oh, you can have my records’, so I got these 10 albums. It was stuff like Israel Vibration, Burning Spear – really serious reggae music. 

I would try to copy and learn the basslines. What fascinated me was the fact that it was the first time I'd heard records with no singing on them – just drums, bass and atmosphere.

How did this love of reggae go on to influence your work as an engineer and producer, as well as Prince Fatty’s sound?

When I moved to London, I started working with Rebel MC, and the guys in there were already sampling Burning Spear and all that stuff. So I knew the records they were sampling. Then I started working in a studio in Brixton and all the local reggae artists used to work out of there – really special guys from the ‘60s.

For example, Roy Shirley is one of the most special reggae singer songwriters from the ‘60s. Anybody that knows reggae music knows the importance of Roy Shirley, and as a 16 or 17 year old I had no idea that this old, lovely, super-talented black gentleman was who he was. 

He used to come in and book little sessions here and there. It was so nice to work with him and I always loved it, but I just had no idea of his history. No one ever told me, “Hey, that's the great Roy Shirley who was one of the co-founders of rocksteady”. 

I was very lucky to work with all those guys in a very natural, organic way, so I was comfortable working with Jamaican artists – I didn't have a problem understanding them or their vibes. Later when I started doing my thing as Prince Fatty, it was natural for me. 

I just called my old friends to make music. I love it – it's like my hobby that turned into a full time job.

You’ve recently been involved in setting up a brand new, dedicated recording studio in Brighton called Seaside Studios (formerly a 1910 Salvation Army hall), which will open in late August 2022. What made you want to get involved with Russell Church’s new venture?

The building that he's made is very, very special. It's been redesigned from the ground up and the [John Flynn-designed] acoustics are world class. It's a multimillion pound facility, no doubt. 

It's very exciting that Brighton actually has a studio that is worthy of attracting international artists now – it has always lacked that. There were never any nice, big live rooms to work out of – the studios were basically posh project studios. 

What Russell's done is very brave, and I love it. I think he's gonna make some great music there. I'm very happy to be associated with it and to get to book sessions and to go down there. It's really a special place.

No expense has been spared when it comes to Seaside Studios’ equipment – it is filled with the very best of modern and vintage gear, including an extremely rare Neve 8068 desk. Why did Church opt for this particular console?

Russell loves AC/DC’s Back In Black – he thinks it is one of the best-sounding records ever made. He was like, “Wow, whatever that was recorded on, I want one of those too!” And he managed to track one down. He's got a very special one. 

The history of this particular desk is quite fun too – it comes from Ibiza and it’s had a lot of funk made on it. We've been told that Nile Rogers and people like George Clinton and Daft Punk used it.

I helped him install the desk when we brought it down. The 8068 was basically the Ferrari or the Rolls Royce of the Neve era of mixing consoles. It was made in 1976, and the mid ‘70s was the peak for real analogue audio equipment where money was no object when it came to creating the most fantastic equipment possible. 

The 8068 is a beautiful, handmade mixing desk. It's unbelievable-sounding. There's a reason why almost 50 years after they made them, they're still one of the most sought after mixing desks in the world. 

So many famous recordings were done on 8068s, like AC/DC. When I was growing up, as a sound engineer, everyone always referenced Steely Dan albums as being the sonic masterpieces of the late ‘70s – and they were all done on Neve 8068s.

The 8068 is considered to be one of, if not the best, vintage Neve console for tracking and mixing; have you found that to be the case?

Yeah, of course. It’s one of the best mixing and recording desks. You have to record on it and mix on it to get the full effect. As a recording console is where it comes through the best, because the microphone amplifiers on it are very special, so when you record on it and then mix down on it, it is beautiful. 

To give you an idea, many times I would record something on a 8068 console and then for whatever reason, the record company would decide to then go and do the mix elsewhere. Then we would spend most of our time trying to catch our tails again, and we'd be constantly referencing the mix of the 8068 console to even come close to it. 

It was a struggle even though it was the same recorded source material. They really do have a sonic quality to them. Some people prefer the earlier designs that Neve produced, but I disagree. I think they're inferior. The 8068 era of Neves, in my opinion, is the best yet – hands down.

Anyone that knows their vintage Neve consoles knows this must have been one hell of an investment…

Like I said, Russell is nuts! That’s why I love him. I think he's a genius and very brave. But also at the same time, fortune favours the brave, and to put a world class recording facility together right now is a great achievement, especially as he's been building it through the pandemic as well. 

He's managed to do it with all the possible delays and hassles you can imagine. I look forward to Seaside Studios opening. The reality is, you can have the best mixing console in the world, but if the acoustics and the environment aren't great, then you can only achieve so much. 

Russell has gone to great lengths to produce and design a world class mixing room with first class acoustics, and also a beautiful, very large live room that can accommodate a really big band without any cramping or acoustic defects. So you can go there and make something special.

Seaside Studios is also home to 12 AMS Neve 1081R mic preamps; how will those be essential for engineers making music at the studio?

It depends on the level of production and what people are recording. I tend to work quite sparsely so I rarely need more than 20 or 24 mic amps in a session, but occasionally you're gonna get a much bigger production where you need 40 mic amps. 

That's why Russell got the 1081s, because they're brilliant and are from the same era – even though they got slightly different numbers – but they're all Class AB Neve designs. They’re the crème de la crème and are exactly the right thing to compliment the studio with.

Listen to the full interview with Mike Pelanconi on Headliner Radio, here: