We caught up with Mark Archer from ALTERN 8 ahead of this year's MUCKY WEEKENDER FESTIVAL
Ahead of the Mucky Weekender Festival which takes place in September, we caught up with a pioneer of the rave scene and all round legend MARK ARCHER to chat about the early days of ALTERN 8, producing classic rave tunes, early days in the studio, producing music now vs the 90’s and his 3 top tips to survive a music festival. For all of this and more, read on….
You’re playing at this year’s Mucky Weekender which takes place in September, how did this come about, were you invited to play or did you have to apply to Barry Ashworth directly?
I was invited to play, Barry himself spoke directly to my wife Nikki (who runs NLA Artists agency) as she looks after a lot of ‘oldskool’ DJ’s and that’s the style everyone really knows me for.
The lineup for this year’s Mucky Weekender festival is pretty much a who’s who of the DJ fraternity, which of the other performers are you excited about sharing the stage with?
Really looking forward to catching the Dub Pistols obviously, as well as Leeroy Thornhill, X-Press 2, Terry Farley, King Yoof & Matty Campbell, The Allergies and of course the Freestylers and Too Many T’s.
Altern-8 had a fair amount of chart success back in the early 90s but you still managed to retain your credibility amongst DJs and fans of the scene, how do you think you managed that?
Being totally honest, there was a massive backlash against Altern-8 in the 2000’s and our music was slated in a lot of publications. Slowly, this turned around and I’ve found I’ve played not only ‘revival’ nights, but nights where the music has direct influences from what we were doing in the early 90’s. Over the years I’ve seen the crowds change from people who used to go to raves back in the day with their younger brothers or sisters who weren’t old enough at the time to a whole new generation who have been brought up on the music. It’s so good to see someone who is 18 years old, right up the front knowing all the words to what you’re playing.
You’ve made some classic examples of early hardcore that still hold up today, are there any of your productions that you could single out as favourites?
The track that I worked on with Chris that is one of my proudest moments is probably ‘Infiltrate 202’ and it’s the one that even people who never followed that race scene through hardcore like. But for a track I did on my own it would be ‘Frequency’. It was just a simple track to play live but turned into a bit of a monster!
How does the dynamic work when you’re in the studio?
Back in the late 80’s/early 90’s when I was working with Chris, he was the one who could play keyboards but wasn’t into House music or Techno at all so I had to try and explain what I wanted until we got a riff that I was happy with. I’d write a demo track that we would play out live for a while and if it went down well we would take it into the studio and expand on it. So tracks like ‘Activ 8’ and ‘E Vapor 8’ started life as little demos that are now up on the Altern 8 Bandcamp page.
The 90s was an exciting time for innovative dance music, especially the early part of the decade. What artists and labels informed your music back then?
I was looking a lot to artists from Chicago and Detroit at the start but you’d also have influences from the Hip Hop that was around at the time as well as piano tunes coming in from Italy and the techno coming over from Belgium. Frankie Bones was knocking out tunes at a furious rate as well! The UK scene was a huge melting pot for all these styles and allowed us to add our own twist to things with the Northern bleep and bass thing.
When was the last time you played a set on vinyl? Do you miss that?
I stopped relying on playing records in about 2011 when I’d had my record boxes not turn up to gigs one too many times and the state of the decks set up was something that could ruin your performance. It’s ace playing records and when most people had stopped long before I did, I was still going with them, but the transportation and bad setups just make them too much hassle.
How does producing music now differ to the 90s both in terms of what you’re making but also in terms of who you’re making it for and how it’s consumed?
We were making tracks back then for the rave scene and at the time had no idea what we were doing, it was all a learning process and you’d be making the few pieces of kit you had do things they weren’t designed for. These days it’s virtually impossible to reach the boundaries of what is possible and with the help of the internet, if you’re after a technique you can just look it up. But music is being consumed in a totally different way too, music is far less valuable than it used to be and has almost become disposable so you have to make everything that you make really (for want of a better word) collectible.
Could you let us have a classic playlist and current playlist (top 10 of each)?
Classic Playlist
It’s Happening - Plus One feat. Sirron
Beyond The Dance (Cult Mix) - Rhythim Is Rhythim
Land Of Confusion - Armando
Acid Thunder - Dj Fast Eddie
Vamp - Outlander
Technarcy - Cybersonik
Elevation - Xpansions
Voodoo Ray - A Guy Called Gerald
Just Another Chance - Reece
Sueno Latino - Sueno Latino
Current Playlist
Lux (Kaidi Tatham Remix) - Coflo
Let It Go - Louie Vega & The Martinez Brothers (with Marc E. Bassy)
Forever Your Friend - James Curd
Found This - Phaze Dee
Everybody Dancing - Romanthony
Still Drive - Tom Chubb (Richard Earnshaw Inner Spirit Revibe Extended)
Tenderly (Honeycomb Vocal Mix) - Wipe The Needle
Enoch’s House (Dj Kemit Remix) - Robert Glasper
Downtown - Honey Dijon feat. Annette Brown & Nikki-O (Louie Vega Dub)
Believe - P-Rallel feat Fredwave & Jeshi
Aside from the Mucky Weekender festival, where else can people catch you playing this year?
Clockstock, Field Manoeuvres festival, Boomtown, Beatherder, Heal festival, Sandy Park Sessions and a Shelley’s Reunion to name a few.
Getting through a music festival can be tough at times, tell me your top 3 festival survival tips?
Stay Hydrated, no harm having some water between bevvies and it really helps.
Have some really good friends round you who know when you may need help.
Get the three little words app to remember where your tent is. Game changer.
We’d like to thank the good people at CrashThe90’s for collaborating with us on this interview and Mark for sparing the time to chat to us about the good old days and we wish him every success for the Mucky Weekender festival and all future music endeavours. To keep up with all of his musical exploits, click on the links below;