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Mark Knight: ‘I’ve done so many nutty things’

Mark Knight joins The Rebecca Judd Show on Apple Music 1 for a special Throwback Takeover, playing some of his favourite tunes and reflecting on his career to date. In his interview with Rebecca, he reveals his regret at not attending The Grammys the year he was nominated for his work with Black Eyed Peas,…

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Mark Knight joins The Rebecca Judd Show on Apple Music 1 for a special Throwback Takeover, playing some of his favourite tunes and reflecting on his career to date. In his interview with Rebecca, he reveals his regret at not attending The Grammys the year he was nominated for his work with Black Eyed Peas, shares some of his most ‘nutty’ experiences, including an afterparty on a Russian submarine, and more.

Mark Knight Tells Apple Music It Would Be ‘Great To Do A Book’ About His Life Experiences…

God, I’ve done so many nutty things. Here are a couple of the more legal ones. I remember being in Columbia and this guy had hired out the control tower at an airport. It was massive. So I was playing that. And the guys were switching the light off and on the runway, the runway lights. That was pretty nuts. I remember doing a gig in St. Petersburg in Russia. I finished playing, and St. Petersburg is a beautiful city and it’s canals everywhere. We’d finished playing and this guy said, “Right, we’ve got a special after party.” So we jumped in this speed boat and we had an afterparty on a submarine. Which is quite weird. It’s been quite an eventful ride, one has to say thus far. It’d be great to do a book. But yeah, some nutty things have happened along the way. For sure.

Mark Knight Tells Apple Music Why His Collaboration With Beverley Knight Is His Favourite Track…

I always used to answer this question ‘Downpipe’, which is the record I did with Underworld. But I’m going to now say probably the record I did with Beverley, ‘Everything’s Going To Be All Right’. Because it’s one of those records I hear and it just makes me feel very complete as a producer. Every time I hear it, it brings a slight lump to the back of my throat, “Wow. I actually did that.” And working with Beverly is incredible. And the London Community Gospel Choir, just having the energy, the scale of all of those people on one record, it’s quite a unique thing and something that you might only do once in your recording career. Because it’s a big process, and it’s an expensive process in pulling all that together. But I was so happy with the result and it was written at a time when we were really locked down and things weren’t great. And I just wanted to write something as a bit of a message of hope and something that had some meaning, some depth that would stand up.

Mark Knight Tells Apple Music He Regrets Not Attending The Grammys The Year He Was Nominated…

Yeah. That was quite a mad one. I was literally just in the studio one day and I get a phone call from David who phoned me and said “Mark, I’m just in the studio with Will and Black Eyed Peas and we’re doing some music for their new album. Have you got anything that might be right?” I was like, “Do you know what, I might actually. Because I’ve got this backing track that I’ve done that I think might work. So I’ll send it across.” And about 20 minutes later, will.i.am phoned me up, said, “Oh Mark, we love this. Can we use it?” So I’m like, “Yeah, why not?” It was pretty nice. And one thing I do regret was not going. I wish I would have went. I was like, “Whatever, I’m not going to bother with the Grammy’s.” In hindsight I should have probably gone.

Mark Knight Tells Apple Music That Michael Bublé Is His Guilty Pleasure…
Well, look. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Michael Bublé, would it? It just officially wouldn’t happen unless you have Michael Bublé on in the house. So he’s definitely my guilty pleasure every year. It feels like a very nice comfy cardigan having Michael Bublé on at Christmas. So he’s definitely my guilty pleasure. You could pick anything by him and it’d sound like Christmas.

Mark Knight Tells Apple Music About His Introduction To The Music Business….
It was a very organic process. I just had all this music and I bought myself a pair of decks and taught myself how to DJ. And I remember my first ever gig. It was Tuesday night, and it was dead on Tuesday night, about five people there. But you play to 5,000 people, no one’s going anywhere because there’s 5,000 people who have all spent a lot of money to be there. But when you learn to play to five people, and if you play one wrong record, they’re going to go and that’s the end of it. There’s no one there, it’s just you. And that’s where I learned that you have to think about every record. Is it the right context for where we are for the amount of people? Learning to become a DJ and the hunger to do it.

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