The Manchester don with the tune on everybody’s lips
After several years successfully DJing and promoting on the Manchester circuit, Ben Pearce thankfully turned his hand to producing and is now Creative Director at the record label and DJ agency, Purp & Soul. Dan Prince checks in with a name we are going to be getting very used to in the years to come…
Hey Ben welcome to DMCWORLD, you have the Buzz Chart people amongst your biggest fans at the moment thanks to your delightful ‘What I Might Do’ track, as Pete Tong described it, “a touch of Gill Scott Heron in there”. Talk us through the track…
“The pleasure is all mine! Glad to hear they dig it! It’s been knocking around my laptop for well over a year now, one of those things that I’ve procrastinated over and the title has turned out to be perfect so it’s kind of worked out nicely”
Had you any idea how much of a monster track you had created on completion of the tune?
“Still no idea now, I’m overwhelmed with it all. It’s great to hear that people love it so much, it still surprises me the reaction it gets when I play it out, I think it slowly dawned on me when I put the clip up online, and of course when Solomun played it in Fabric on NYE that was a moment where I kind of thought I’d made something a bit decent”
At DMC we are loving you are a dance music devotee after starting your love affair with music in metal and rock bands. First of, who were your early musical influences growing up?
“Haha, so hard to pin down really, and I suppose it’s not the usual “first set of decks at the age of 12″ story you hear so much… I grew up listening to bands like Brand New, Bowling for soup, the rolling stones, atreyu, finch, taking back sunday, led zeppelin, simple plan, the doors and then a lot of hip hop like slum village, a tribe called quest, eyedea & abilities, I’m constantly picking up new music to listen to, I recently checked out a band called GOAT which are a swedish psychedelic funk rock band and they’re brilliant!”
Were you one of these guitar and drum devotees who never gave dance music a chance?
“I’ll be honest I never came across it, it wasn’t on my radar until much later in life, I even didn’t pay much attention to pop music and still don’t, I had a very varied music collection, I still remember having a Limp Bizkit CD next to a Ja Rule CD and it looked somewhat odd in some people’s eyes. My dad brought me up with classical music surrounding me. So who was it that started to change the music that you listened to and what were the early tracks that grabbed your attention? It was really just going out to clubs in Manchester, I remember seeing Tenaglia in Manchester and he was awesome, as for tracks, I can’t really place any real source for it, I binged on house music when I first got into it, trawling through youtube and blogs.”
What is the current top 10 you are spinning?
“In no particular order…
Paolo Rocco – Move Body Move Forward
Ejeca – Horizon
Bareskin – Eyes
Ame’s remix of Howling
Pearson’s sound edit of working with on night slugs
Klic – Disco Music (still)
Jouhl & Harry Wolfman – High Fidelity
Zaar – Notorious Disco
Resketch – Yearner
And I guess I spin my track, ‘What I Might Do’, a fair amount…”
You are now on board at Purp & Soul with Chris Farnworth, one of the UKs brightest agencies and new labels. Tell us all about it…
“We got together in Autumn last year and it’s really gone from strength to strength, we have such a tight crew of artists, we all seek each other’s opinion on new projects, collaborate, and have great banter. We have some amazing releases coming up including a VA album in October time, Jouhl & Harry’s EP coming after that with some sick remixes. We’re planning to start a vinyl sub label early next year which I’m excited about. Every showcase we do is better than the last and we all enjoy playing with eachother so much, the funny thing is we can all play back 2 back and it flows so smoothly, sometimes you get playing with someone and it doesn’t work but it’s all like clockwork with us, which is very cool”
Where has been the best club around the world you have rocked this year?
“I really enjoyed the Brixton Clubhouse for FeedYourEars, Gibraltar for Cliche was a great night and I really loved playing in Manchester again a couple of weeks ago for our showcase at Joshua Brooks. Hard to pick really”
Who are the producers you are giving high fives to out there at the moment?
“Literally? well, if I can send e-high-fives they’d be going to a lot of people. Particularly, The XX and Jamie XX for so so many reasons up to and including coexist. Some producers: Last Magpie, James Welsh, Medlar, Disclosure, George Fitzgerald, Solomun, Resketch, Bicep for sure, and John Talabot just for producing one of my favourite albums of all time with Fin. All the Purp & Soul boys are punching out gold at the moment as well.”
What is coming next from you studio wise?
“I have a few remixes on the go at the moment, I’m trying to write original material and I’m getting together with some great vocalists. I have a track called Just Enough agreed with Under The Shade and a track coming out on Purp & Soul’s VA Album soon. I’m not even sure what’s next really, I’ll just see what comes out and hope for the best.”
With such a wide musical taste, what is your guilty pleasure record?
“I don’t really think I’m guilty about anything I listen to, I really like band covers of tracks, the Punk goes Pop series are great fun to listen to.”
With Sankeys having a very good run in Ibiza and The Warehouse Project unveiling some stupendous Autumn line ups, would it be fair to say that your home city is the UK’s number one clubbing destination on British shores at the moment?
“Yeah for sure Manchester is great for it, but not even because of the clubs with the biggest heating bills. There’s promoters like Zutekh, Doodle, Departure, Thick As Thieves and Tpot at venues like Joshua Brooks, Soup Kitchen, 2022NQ and Underdog which get the best crowds and amazing music. There’s so much going on and it’s inspiring!”
And finally, what is the one piece of advice you can offer to the thousands of aspiring producers/DJs and label wannabees wanting to follow in your footsteps…
“Make your own music, and be yourself. You’ll get nowhere to be proud of by copying somebody else’s style or by paying somebody to get your music made for you. Grit your teeth and get through the hours pulling your hair out stooped over your laptop getting back problems and insomnia, it’s worth it in the end.”
