PIER61 is Mark Russell.
The first album Mark bought was an LP of 6 remixes by various producers of a popular 80’s band and it helped transport him into a world of futuristic landscapes, artificial sounds and hypnotic melodies.
‘I remember sat at home in 1986 clasping my ghetto blaster, watching my Dad wallpapering the lounge and listening to these songs. I recall the little speaker tweeter vibrating with the bass and secretly turning it up. I think he liked it too!’
He was hooked, and that year, he put an electronic keyboard on his Christmas list.
'I used to sift through the Argos catalogue looking at these instruments and just wanting to touch them. I’d skip off school early sometimes and go to our local Tandy (an electronics store which closed in 1999) where they had a bank of these things on a stand. I was completely mesmerised and had no idea about reverb, sustain or the term ‘sequencer!’
Christmas came and a Yamaha PSS-470 was waiting under the tree.
‘I was in musical heaven with the most basic mini keyboards you could imagine. I learned a lot on that little machine and loved the way you could record your own drum, bass and melody sequence, but you couldn’t ‘develop’ a song.'
In the early 1990’s, Mark and his best friend created a band - both would sing, Mark would play keyboards and Stewart the guitar. Everything was spontaneous and off the cuff and they had many local gigs and became more of a comedy act than anything else.
‘We had a small tape recorder with a tiny mic and we would set ourselves up in whoever’s bedroom and just jam and make songs. We would make about 30 songs in an afternoon and it was so much fun. I think we made about 25 albums in the space of 3 years or so’
He remembers spending his lunch breaks in the music block at school writing songs and creating music on a 16 track tape sequencer.
‘I was always late for the lesson after lunch and used to get into trouble a lot as I never really concentrated at school. I was more interested in humming a tune in my head and working out the best chord change. I love a good chord change!’
Many Christmas’s and birthdays passed and Mark managed to upgrade his then ‘current’ keyboard with another Yamaha until in late 1998 he had an affair with a Roland and never looked back.
Today Mark’s DAW includes a couple of Roland Fantoms. Nothing else.
‘I don’t need anything else. It’s a simple set up and makes my whole process straight forward and quick.’
Up until about 2 years ago, PIER61 was mainly a vessel for instrumental, lo-fi experimental music.
‘I always had a passion to write music for film and TV shows as I like taking a theme and interpreting it to music. I still found myself writing the odd lyric here and there but due to my set up at home I found it difficult to record. It felt like a cumbersome process. I found it easier just to sing into my phone and upload it to a track and manipulate it in some way to fit. However, now that we have all these tools at our disposal in our DAW’s, it is now really easy so I have turned the process on its head and I now start by writing lyrics first and then making the music to fit around the song. This is my ‘go-to’ process now and it really works for me.
I enjoy observing the smallest thing, like recently watching people in a heatwave using an umbrella to shade themselves from the sun - which just appeared odd, so it inspired me to write a song about irony. Or a large scale world event like the politics behind the Strait of Hormuz and turning it into a pop song. I am always striving to make the most wonderful pop song!’
The strengths of a good lyricist is being able to bring words together and tell a story that we can all relate to. He continues…
‘The best part of the process of writing a song, for me, is the choice of words. Our language is so varied and rich that you can make just about anything go together - but it does take a bit of skill! I still particularly like ‘We’re all gaged and duped into fake innuendos, our lives don’t warrant colourful crescendos’'
‘Colourful Crescendos’, is about how the government manipulates and controls us all and how we end up feeling that we don't deserve a better life.
PIER61 tells stories about how the world may fair better with a woman in charge, how A.I is a threat with Terminators running around L.A, living in a weak woke world and loving your captor. He’s even written a pop song about the recent riots in the UK.
‘One of the biggest influences for me though has been my wife. I would say about 50% of my songs are about her in one way or another.
She is the truest, purest person I have ever met and I am blessed that I can call myself her husband. She brings out the best in me and has helped create PIER61. She even came up with the name - another story!
We met at Sainsbury’s (UK food store) whilst in 6th form. She worked in the cash office upstairs and I collecting trolleys around the arse end of Newbury. I looked up to her then, quite literally, and always will.'
In the evolving world of A.I, where does PIER61 stand?
‘This is a very interesting topic and can be quite divisive with musicians/song writers.
There are two sides to this debate for me - using it in its full capacity or as a co-worker - as I do.
I use it to help master my tracks. My Fantom has numerous ways to enhance sound etc but when it’s converted to a WAV file and downloaded to my phone, it does loose volume and depth so I use it to master my songs rather than using a sound engineer.
Sometimes I need help with a chord progression (I love a chord progression - as you know) or I need an arrangement skeleton to get my lyrics to fit around a bridge in a song. I love a good bridge too because it takes the track to a new phase before it links back to the verse or chorus.
In a way, it's much like the pre-recorded styles on my old Yamaha’s to help you build a song around them. I hated these pre-recordings so never used them. It was all from scratch back then.
Sometimes A.I can generate a progression that has layered elements that sound awful but there may be elements in these phrases that are quite interesting so you can separate the ‘stems’ and place them into your song. I sometimes use it for this.
I also use it to polish and correct my vocals too which helps as I don’t think I am a particularly good singer!
Ironically, I wrote a song recently called ‘No.A.I.’ about Terminators, SkyNet, ChatGPT and the red button. Am I a hypocrite?!
80’s / 90’s electronic bands used samples almost all the time and crafted the song/music around that so it’s always been there. He adds…
‘I think where the whole thing falls down a rabbit hole and deemed cheating is where you ask it to ‘write me a song about going up an escalator to my favourite shop. Make it sound like Ed Sheeran.'
We use ChatGPT in our lives everyday in one way or another, so it has a place in the modern world of music too. It is all about adapting.
Synthesisers have always been ‘A.I’, but I am a strong believer that whatever you get out of it has to have been put in in the first place.
The idea, emotion and experiences are always going to have to be human to strike a chord with the listener.
PIER61 is human - at least the last time I checked I was! 😁