Dr Meaker “The biggest reward is creative control”

Bristol’s own Dr Meaker is back and ready to drop heat in the form of his third artist album ‘Distorted Sun’. We caught up with the prolific producer to chat about tracks from the album, his unique DIY approach to music, his workflow when working with singers & connecting with his fan base…

Let’s jump straight into it and talk about the forthcoming album, it’s your 3rd LP, what do you think are the hallmarks of a good D&B album?

The hallmarks of any good album are tracks that have a strong emotional impact on the listener and for that impact to continue to resonate over time. Only time can tell how well an album stands up but the best albums are timeless

Do you have a personal favourite drum & bass album?

Planet V – Various Artists
Adam F – Colours
Roni Size Reprezent – New Forms
Ed Rush & Optical – Wormhole
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All great drum and bass albums!

You’re drip feeding a single each month leading up to the full album release in September. What’s the thought process behind this release strategy?

It’s because these days people don’t buy physical albums and so everything is geared towards one release at a time on Spotify etc. So I want to shine an individual light on as many tunes from the album as possible, so each one gets more of a chance to be heard

The first few singles all have great vocals. The first single ‘Try’ really caught my attention, how did you link with Laurent John the vocalist on that track? He’s got an amazingly soulful singing voice

We met at a show at Bristol Beacon (formerly Colston Hall) in 2013. He was in a backing choir for our band and after reviewing the footage from the show I could hear that his voice stood out a mile and so I contacted him and we set to work. We actually made ‘Try’ back around 2014/15 and I updated it for this album

Working With Vocalists

What’s your workflow for collaborating with vocalists? Do you send them the instrumental and let them write from that, or is it more collaborative where you write with them & build the track around their vocal?

I’ve made songs in lots of different ways with vocalists. Mostly, I write the backing track and send it to them, they then write the vocals and send their ideas back to me. We’ll then come together to record. Sometimes they write on the spot in my studio, sometimes they come with their own ideas for a song and I produce it

Any tips for up & coming producers for working with live vocalists or session musicians? I’m hearing a lot of the same Splice / Loopcloud samples being used over & over, I feel a lot more producers need to get away from the loop packs and start experimenting with singers & other musicians

It’s always good to get in a recording space with musicians so you really feed off each other’s ideas to truly collaborate. It’s really handy to use the internet to bounce things around but being in a room together can open doors that just one person on their own might not find.

I agree Splice is great but you aren’t ever going to be using exclusive sounds, the only way to do that is to make them… Or, dare I say it, AI is incoming which can also do that

‘The Flame’ drops today and feels to me like the perfect festival track, feel good vocals & gnarly bass lines… When you’re making music do you try to mentally visualize where it might get played?

Sometimes when I’m making a tune I might get a feeling about how it might work in the club, at a festival, or simply in the car, or somewhere with headphones on. Generally speaking though, I know if I’m feeling it then the chances are that others will too

Dr Meaker Live

Aside from being a solo artist, Dr Meaker is also a live drum & bass band! Do any of your band mates help with the production or instrumentation on the recorded music at all?

Yes, you will hear the horn players Ben Wood, Andy Hayes & Simon Alexander on the album in places. Check out ‘Bittersweet’ where we have the brass section. Tom Wheeler is the drummer in the band and is also a great producer in his own right. He recently collaborated with me on the song ‘All You Did’ which is out on Born On Road

Being An Independent / DIY Artist

You’re very much a DIY artist, as in you write, mix, master & are releasing this album yourself, What are the biggest challenges and rewards of being a completely independent artist?

The biggest challenges are time and the fact that I don’t have a team to sort all the boring stuff that takes me away from being an artist. Back in the 90’s bands around Bristol had a lot of the back end stuff taken care of, I wish we could still be in that place. Major record labels no longer put any backing into bands like us… Unless you pop on TikTok, then they’ll begging to sign you, regardless of the quality of your music. It’s fucked up actually.

The biggest reward is creative control. But again, back in the day, labels used to nurture artists and allow for that creative exploration over a number of years

Being an independent artist, how do you approach building and connecting with your fanbase?

There are two sides to what I do. First is the released music, which I have been releasing on the biggest labels in drum and bass over the last five years. This way I have been connecting with people and DJs to the music on the dancefloor, in the raves, and also on the streaming platforms and digital download sites like Spotify and Beatport.

The other side to what I do is the live band, and this is where I tend to connect with our most hard-core fans. They are there for the live music and for the band. We have a really strong following and we have built that up over the last 20 years to the point that we are playing 22 festivals this summer in the UK, mostly headlining.

A problem that I face is that much of my music released with drum and Bass labels is quite dancefloor and doesn’t sound like live band music. My ongoing challenge is bringing these two fan bases together. My albums are always much more focused on the music rather than the heavy beats and so I’ve tried to combine great songs and heavy beata with the music to appeal to both of our fan bases.

It would be great to hear the DJs playing album tracks and also to have the live band fans buying the album as well!

Aside from a single each month, is there anything else in the pipeline from Dr Meaker? Perhaps some live shows or DJ sets to promote the album?

Yes, We are planning an album tour and these are the dates that we have so far…

14/10/24 – MELKWEG – AMSTERDAM (LIVE ACT)
02/11/24 – TRINITY – BRISTOL (LIVE ACT)
23/11/24 – H15 – COPENHAGEN(LIVE ACT)
30/11/24 – PECKHAM LEVELS – LONDON (LIVE ACT)
07/11/24 – ROOTS IN SESSION – SLOVENIA (DJ SET)
21/12/24 – KING ARTHUR – GLASTONBURY (LIVE ACT)
25/01/25 – QUEENS HALL – NARBETH (LIVE ACT)
22/03/25 – ELECTRIC PALACE – BRIDPORT (LIVE ACT)
05/04/25 – HIPPOS – SWANSEA (LIVE ACT)

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