Dan Grech-Marguerat
| Dan Grech-Marguerat | |
|---|---|
| Born |
11 July 1981 Bedford, England |
| Other names | Dan Grech |
| Occupation |
Recording engineer record producer musician |
Daniel James Grech-Marguerat (born 11 July 1981 in Bedford) is an English recording engineer, record producer and mixer (also known as Dan Grech). His production pulls together a blend of alternative and pop genres, his recent work with Foe was described as producing a "Polished Pop Gem" adding "His signature is all over it".[1]
Past work includes The Vaccines, Lana Del Rey,[2] Keane,[3] Hurts, The Kooks, Scissor Sisters, Dragonette, Moby[4] and Howling Bells.[5] A mutual admiration led to work with Keane who quoted his work with the Vaccines as one of the inspirations of their latest album Strangeland.[6][7]
Biography
Dan Grech started out at RAK Studios in St Johns Wood London as an assistant recording engineer before going on to work with acclaimed producer Nigel Godrich for 2 further years. Whilst working with Godrich he worked as an engineer on records including Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Divine Comedy, Beck and Radiohead, winning a Grammy Award in 2009 for his work on Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' which picked up 'Best Alternative Album 2009'.[8]
In 2006 he mixed the Scissor Sisters second multi-platinum selling album entitled Ta-Dah, including the hit single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'",[9] co-written by Elton John, which went to number one in 8 countries, and top 10 in 20 countries.
Later that year Grech mixed the debut record for the band Dragonette,[10] starting a long term relationship with the band. He went on to co-produce and mix all their work to date. More recently the band had huge success with the track Hello co-written and performed with Martin Solveig.
In 2007 Grech produced two tracks for the Radio 1 Established 1967 anniversary album, one for The Kooks and one for The Kaiser Chiefs. Following on from this he went on to produce several tracks for The Kooks second award winning album Konk. Also in 2007 he mixed the Moby album Last Night.
2008 – 2010 saw Grech work with artists such as Sam Sparro, Just Jack and Ke$ha, as well as produce the album Radio Wars for Australian band Howling Bells.
In 2010 Grech produced the debut album for The Vaccines, What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?. In an interview in May 2011 Pete Robertson, The Vaccines drummer, discussed what they saw as a "Really great partnership" and the aspects Grech brought to the Album.[11] Grech produced this hotly tipped band who reached number 4 in the album charts in 2011. The record went on to reach platinum in the UK and is still the band's best selling album.
Other releases in 2011 included singles and remixes for the award winning English band Hurts, the hugely popular Lana Del Rey EP "Video Games".
Grech went on to mix the multi-platinum selling Lana Del Rey album Born to Die which went to number one in over 15 countries in February 2012 has sold over 7 million copies to date.
In May 2012 Keane released their 4th studio album Strangeland, which Dan both produced and mixed. In a recent interview pianist Tim Rice-Oxley told NME, "We loved what (producer) Dan Grech did on The Vaccines album. It had just come out. He'd also done stuff with Radiohead and produced the second Howling Bells album, which I loved. As luck would have it, Dan was a massive Keane fan, so we ended working with him.".[12] Strangeland went straight to number one and went Gold within three weeks.
2013 saw the release of Long Way Down the debut record for Tom Odell, winner of the BRITs Critics Choice Award.[13] Odell was later named 'songwriter of the year' for this album at the 2014 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony. In 2013 Grech also produced The Brink, the second album for the award winning Australian band The Jezabels.[14]
Grech's main focus in 2014 was Liverpool based guitar band Circa Waves. He produced and mixed their debut album which entered the UK charts at number 10 in April 2015. Singles from the album included "Fossils" and "T-Shirt Weather", both of which were A-List Radio One records. When discussing the recording of their album in a recent interview, frontman Kieran told Echo magazine: "Dan is amazing. He’s so collaborative and open to any kind of suggestion. I’d always dreamed about making our first album and to do it with him was everything we could have hoped for. We didn't know what to expect but he was so encouraging and we came out feeling that we’d learned loads." [15]
In November that year Grech co-produced and mixed the music for the much talked about John Lewis advert which featured "Monty The Penguin". The track was a Tom Odell cover of the John Lennon song "Real Love".
Grech's biggest record of 2015 was from new American female solo artist Halsey. He had previously mixed her Room 93 EP and now mixed Badlands her debut record which entered the Billboard chart at number 2 and was a top 10 record in 6 other countries. The album quickly went on to sell over a million copies and includes platinum single "New Americana". The track "Castle" from the album was also reworked and used as the title track to the film The Huntsman.
In 2015 he mixed Night Swim, the debut album for Josef Salvat. This included Josef's cover of Rhianna's "Diamonds" which featured on a Sony Bravia advert. He also additionally produced and mixed the Birdy and Rhodes duet "Let It All Go",[16] as well as the Shura single White Light.
At the start of 2016 Grech worked with Mumford & Sons for the first time. He recorded the Johannesburg EP in South Africa with the band.[17][18] The EP was a collaboration with Senegalese singer Baaba Maal, South African pop group Beatenberg,and Malawian-British singer-producer combo The Very Best. He mixed the EP back in London and it was released in June.
In July FMA the debut album for new artist Grace was released. Grech mixed most tracks on the album which featured Grace's cover of the song "You Don't Own Me" with American rapper G-Easy
He produced two singles for Brit Award Nominee Izzy Bizu, including the radio hit White Tiger.[19] Her album was released in September 2016.
More recently Grech mixed Regina Spektor's seventh studio album Remember Us To Life, and co-produced and mixed Keaton Henson's third solo album. Both of which were released in September this year.
Discography
| Year | Title | Artist | Credits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Amnesiac | Radiohead | Engineer |
| 2007 | In Rainbows | Radiohead | Engineer |
| 2005 | The Roads Don't Love You | Gemma Hayes | Mixing |
| 2006 | Control | GoodBooks | Producer, Mixing |
| 2007 | The Village | Fields | Producer, Mixing |
| 2007 | Track for 40 years of Radio 1 | Kaiser Chiefs | Producer, Mixing |
| 2007 | Galore | Dragonette | Mixing |
| 2009 | Fixin to Thrill | Dragonette | Co-Producer, Mixing |
| 2006 | Ta-Dah | Scissor Sisters | Additional Producer, Mixing |
| 2008 | Last Night | Moby | Mixing |
| 2009 | Radio Wars | Howling Bells | Producer |
| 2009 | Sam Sparro | Sam Sparro | Mixing |
| 2009 | Slow Attack | Brett Anderson | Mixing |
| 2009 | Konk | The Kooks | Producer, Mixing |
| 2010 | Voyage | The Sound of Arrows | Additional Producer, Mixing |
| 2010 | Penguin Prison | Penguin Prison | Additional Producer, Mixing |
| 2011 | What You Wanted | Spector | Producer, Mixing |
| 2011 | Remixes | Hurts | Mixing |
| 2011 | What Did You Expect from The Vaccines? | The Vaccines | Producer |
| 2011 | Bad Dream Hotline | Foe | Mixing |
| 2011 | Nothing to Do | Bleeding Knees Club | Mixing |
| 2011 | Girls | Deep Sea Arcade | Mixing |
| 2011 | Lonely in Your Arms | Deep Sea Arcade | Mixing |
| 2011 | Iron Deer Dream | Fixers | Mixing |
| 2012 | Born to Die | Lana Del Rey | Mixing |
| 2012 | Never Live Another Yesterday | The Penelopes | Mixing |
| 2012 | Strangeland | Keane | Producer, Mixing |
| 2012 | Ways to Forget | Clock Opera | Mixing |
| 2012 | Songs From Another Love EP | Tom Odell | Producer |
| 2012 | Long Way Down | Tom Odell | Producer |
| 2013 | Exile | Hurts | Producer |
| 2013 | Track "Bros" | Wolf Alice | Mixed |
| 2013 | Rituals | Fenech-Soler | Mixed |
| 2013 | Track "India" | Chlöe Howl | Co Produced |
| 2013 | Forthcoming Tracks | Sons & Lovers | Producer |
| 2014 | The Brink | The Jezabels | Producer |
| 2014 | Real Love | Tom Odell | Co Produced and Mixed |
| 2015 | Young Chasers | Circa Waves | Producer |
| 2015 | Badlands | Halsey | Mixing |
| 2015 | Josef Salvat | Josef Salvat | Mixing |
| 2015 | Let It All Go | Birdy & Rhodes | Additional Production, Mixing |
| 2015 | White Light | Shura | Mixing |
| 2016 | Johannesburg | Mumford and Sons | Additional Production, Mixing |
| 2016 | FMA | Grace | Additional Production, Mixing |
| 2016 | White Tiger | Izzy Bizu | Producer |
| 2016 | Remember Us To Life | Regina Spektor | Mixing |
References
- ↑ "Foe Bad Dream Hotline Review – BBC Music". BBC News. 5 January 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2012.
- ↑ "Lana Del Rey – Born To Die". Discogs. 23 January 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
- ↑ "New Keane album announced, release date revealed". Music Week. 27 February 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
- ↑ "Moby – Alice". Contact Music. 17 March 2008. Retrieved 17 March 2008.
- ↑ The Range on Radio Adelaide • Brown, Jonathan (Host); Stein, Juanita (Guest) (20 January 2009). "Interview – Juanita from the Howling Bells" (mp3) (Radio broadcast). Australia: University of Adelaide ¤ Automattic. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
- ↑ "Keane on new album: 'The Vaccines inspired us'". Digital Spy. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
- ↑ "Keane discussing their new album". Keane Official Site. 16 March 2012. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
- ↑ "Winners: 51st Grammy Awards – CBSNews". CBC News. 8 February 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
- ↑ Tingen, Paul (1 November 2006). "Scissor Sisters: Recording Ta-Dah". Sound on Sound. Retrieved 1 November 2006.
- ↑ W, Will (29 January 2009). "EQ Interview: The Desexualization of Dragonette". EQ Music Blog. Retrieved 29 January 2009.
- ↑ "Interview: The Vaccines". Doubtful Sounds... 16 May 2011. Retrieved 5 January 2012.
- ↑ "Keane: 'The Vaccines inspired our new album'". NME. 7 March 2012. Retrieved 7 March 2012.
- ↑ "Brit Awards tip Tom Odell for the top". BBC. 20 December 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-22.
- ↑ "The Brink – The Jezabels – Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards – AllMusic". Allmusic. 17 February 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
- ↑ "Circa Waves on Noel Gallagher, the NME tour and working with the Libertines". Echo Magazine. 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
- ↑ "Rhodes and Birdy release new video "Let It All Go"". 2015-08-19. Retrieved 2016-09-05.
- ↑ "'I can't say why we are popular, we've not figured it out' | The Times". The Times. Retrieved 2016-09-05.
- ↑ "MUMFORD & SONS: e' uscito "Johannesburg" il nuovo EP con Baaba Maal, The Very Best, e Beatenberg - Rockon.it" (in Italian). 2016-06-21. Retrieved 2016-09-05.
- ↑ josepvinaixa (2015-10-22). "Izzy Bizu "White Tiger" (Video Premiere)". Retrieved 2016-09-05.