Mike E. Clark

Kid rock and Mike E CLARK
Kotton Mouth Kings
Goerge Clinton and Mike E Clark
chuck D and Mike E Clark

Mike Clark Interview Ever wondered what Mike Clark's fave ICP tunes are? Well - for that and much more, read on! Mike E Clark Interview for Realjuggalos.com 12/1999 Assassin8: Mike, We know you have worked with a lot of artists other that ICP in the past, such as Kid Rock, George Clinton, Utah Saints(remember them?!). My first question is, who would you say has been the best artist/project you have worked with? (And donít feel you have to say ICP just because this is a Juggalo site..!) Mike: Actually a few artists really stand out over the many I have worked with over the years.First of all "ICP" has been the most satisfying because I write the music. When I write for the Clowns I have no boundaries. Tragically most artists are trying to write material that fits into some radio programmers formula, or they are trying to make a song that a collection of 35 to 50 year old A&R people will like (or understand). FUCK THAT! I aint writing for them. I write tracks that me, the clowns & the Juggalos can rock to. Don't get me wrong George Clinton, Fred Wesley and all of those cats are the bomb, It's fresh to know that These incredibly talented and creative people are inspired and down with what I do but when I hear an ICP track i did & I see 5000 raging Jugglos freaking out and getting live at the shows , it is inspiring to make more fresh shit juggalos can get live too.. Assassin8: what do you feel is your best, and most satisfying piece of work you have completed with ICP/Twiztid? We all want to know which is your favorite Joker Card album? Mike: Its hard to say at this time. I don't like to think about it. I just move forward...writing the next track...i don't like to look back...it would make me crazy. i will say..The best and most satisfying work are the tracks im working on right now... i really like all the Jokers Cards the same and for different reasons... Assassin8: You have obviously developed your musical style as time, and albums pass, on what song(s) would you say that the 'true' you is reflected by the music? Mike: all of them...except for the ones that suck. ;) Assassin8: As many know, you have a vast taste in music ? who would you say are your influences over the past 10 years? Mike: Over the last 10 years? none...my influences occurred within the first 20 years of my life. i.e. Motown. Beatles.Curtis Mayfield. Zeppelin. James Brown. Sex Pistols. Talking Heads. early Stones. Husker Du. Black Flag. Prince Paul.Minor Threat..Jimi Hendrex..most of that shit i don't even listen to anymore...i have over 10,000 record albums & about 3,000 cds..now a days artists like Beck .Norman Cook. Aphex Twin.Flaming Lips.Beastie Boys. really inspire me to write... Assassin8: With the arrival of the limited edition EP's 'October 1999' , 'November 1999' and the soon to follow 'December 99' do you have any more personal projects lined up for the near future? Any possible collaborations perhaps? Mike: i just finished the soundtrack for "Big Money Hustlers" and now im doing tracks for DarkLotus..and new ICP tracks. also working on a solo Mike E Clark album for summer of 2000. and i plan on doing Mike E Clark EPs for January & February 2000 and so on.. Assassin8: Do you feel that the actual music and sounds of a song or production tend to get overshadowed by the vocals? Do you think that people are paying more attention to the technicalities of a song these days - as you know, people expect more and more as each day passes! Mike: Not really... Maybe sometimes but generally i feel if you don't like the vocals its hard to listen to the song regardless. and likewise. Assassin8: Is there ever a time when you stop and think "Why am I doing this!" or indeed "I cant believe I am getting to do this!"? Mike: No to both questions. anything you put your mind to you can do... im living proof...when people told me i couldn't do this or i couldn't do that...it would just make me work harder to prove them wrong.... Assassin8: What are top 10 ICP/Twiztid tunes of all time? Mike: 1. Cemetery Girl 2. Dead Body Man 3. S W Strangler 4. 3 rings 5. Cotton Candy 6. Fuck Off 7. Halloween On Military 8. Rock The Dead 9. Wagon Wagon 10.I Stuck Her With My Wang I don't know how accurate that list is...thats just what comes to mind right now.... Assassin8: And last but not least, when referring to the studio, is it really 85 bucks an hour? Mike: It is now...! Assassin8: Thanks for your time Mike - I wish you all the luck with your solo projects...peace! Mike: Anytime...

Over the past decade in his native Detroit, producer/engineer Mike E. Clark has emerged as the city's prolific silent musical partner. Scan just about any disc to merge from Detroit, from George Clinton's "Greatest Funkin' Hits" to Insane Clown Posse's controversial "Great Millenko;" and Clark's name inevitably pops up. His ability to straddle genres have found Clark just as likely to be working with techno divas as garage rockers, while his remix work spans everything from avant dance acts Utah Saints and Gus Gus to funk gods Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns and P-Funk. His discography is a veritable who's-who of Detroit talent, from rappers Kid Rock and Insane Clown Posse to pop acts Majesty Crush and the Charm Farm to low-rent glamsters the Demolition Dollrods and the Gories. His easygoing style (once described as "hands-off, but full-on") and ability to work on the fly (he came up with the beat for Kid Rock's "The Cramper" while on a lunch break from another session) have given him a rep as a can-do DIY producer who is just as comfortable working from a budget of pocket lint as deep pockets. But as his UK Gold Record with Britsh dub-rockers Primal Scream, as well as his work with George Clinton and Public Enemy's Chuck D has proven, his sound is as worldwide as his scope: underground, but ready for export to the rest of the planet. His 24-track Funhouse studio, for instance, has the vintage Roland drum machines that make the dance music heads drool, right along with the digital automation that inspired George Clinton to drop off the original tapes for "Not Just Knee Deep" for Mike to remix. Why? Because he has both a musician's and music lover's ear. He knows, to quote Duke Ellington, that there are only two kinds of music, good and bad, and Mike E. Clark has unfallibly delivered the former for a decade now. He's learned drum miking techniques from P-Funk and turntable scratching from Kid Rock. He has a record collection to rival even that of the Dust Brothers, while his own tastes run even more into the when-world's-collide climes of the Chemical Brothers, from garage 7-inches to dance 12-inches and everything, literally, as his basement record library attests to, in between. Ask any musician who's worked with him, and they'll tell you Clark's the easiest guy they've ever worked with; the mercurial George Clinton so loves Clark, he entrusted two remixes of P-Funk classics to Clark for last year's "Greatest Funkin' Hits"; one local drummer even offered to print up "Mike E.Clark is God " bumper stickers. Forget Tricky, Clark's Nearly God.

Metro Times November 23-29, 1994 Producer/engineer Mike Clark is one of the area's few studio helmsmen who isn't interested in making a name for himself. And this light-handed approach has made Clark Detroit's most interesting and accomplished producer. From his early days as a student at the Recording Institute of Detroit, recording demos for post-punk acts who could otherwise never afford to record, among them bliss tribe Spahn Ranch, Clark's approach has been a mix of DIY ingenuity and a phenomenal ear for music he thinks is worthy the effort. And what an ear. Having produced rap, rock, funk, even European market-only techno tracks, Clarks' versatility has made him a producer whose vision blends practicality with a post-rock sense of what sounds good. Working out of his basement, Clark was one of the first producers to embrace Detroit's underground rap community, working with Detroit rap staple Esham and Kid Rock, as well as Jack Frost, Detroit's Most Wanted and Prince Vince. As a silent partner in ICP's distinguished track record of top-selling albums and EP's, Clark's ability to work with artists has proven itself in the marketplace, and accolade even the most distinguished local producers have trouble claiming. As unlikely a rap magnate as Clark may seem to be, his resume also extends surprisingly far into the alternative rock domain. He produced the last two records by Detroit garage-innocents the Gories, as well as Gangster Fun's "Time Flies" CD, Majesty Crush's "Fan" EP, Hot Footin' Puddin' Pie's new "Heaven Sent" single, and Coup Detroit's latest efforts. But whether he's in his basement eight=track studio working on the new ICP Christmas EP, or the Disc's 24-track enterprise recording P-Funk legends such as George Clinton, Clark always gets something interesting out of his clients. Proof positive is how good his first gold record is, awarded to him for his work with George Clinton on UK groove-popsters Primal Scream's last record. So impressed were the Scream that frontman Bobby Gillespie invited Clark to engineer Primal Scream's B-side sessions last spring in Chicago. As on of Clinton's favorite engineers, Clark has worked extensively with the funk legend and his P-Funk All Stars. Now that Clinton has signed to Sony, Clark could find himself flying down to the islands to work on a new record, or possibly joining George in working on tracks for -gasp!- Michael Jackson. But for now, the burly but humble Clark is putting the finishing touches on ICP's Christmas offering working on demos for local acts, releasing the occasional white-label techno 12-inch to his European distributor and keeping his feet, as always on the ground and under the mixing board.

Metro Times January 8-14, 1997 In a decade that dismisses the second half of the aphorism, "All that glitters...," maybe we forget that much of rock and roll's magic lies behind the world's favorite guitar smashers and sexsoaked singers. Other members of the creative team never get to wallow in the cool-drool of obsessive-compulsive record shoppers; they quietly take their glory in small type in the CD's liner notes. At the risk of offering up something that sounds like a plea for one of the unsung heroes of the studio, there's a master in our midst. And his story may inspire you to check those fine-print credits. When producer Mike E. Clark strayed into the Recording Institute of Detroit eight years ago, he never imagined that his studio roster would someday include names like the world-renowned funkmaster George Clinton and Hollywood Records rappers ICP (Insane Clown Posse). Clark left his budding career in computer-aided drafting and enrolled in a course at the recording institute in 1988. There he began working as a student instructor under Detroit rap producer Marvin Lewis to get access to its studio and to record local bands. "At night I would go in there and record bands or whatever I wanted to do," he says. "I worked with Spahn Ranch (a fragment of which later became Majesty Crush), and I recorded some rap with Marvin's clients." Some of those clients rolled into the studio, Clark says, took one look at the white rookie producer behind the board and refused to work with him, doubting that he could program drum beats for rap. "And they were right," he admits. "I sucked. But I was like, 'I'll show you motherfuckers.' "I think that if I hadn't felt so humiliated back then, I would never have worked so hard at getting really good a what I do. I mean, now I'm programming for George Clinton. Now, that's funky." The haul toward owning his own fully equipped studio, Fun House in Royal Oak, and working with artists he really connected with was a long one. After all, Clark started out just fumbling with switches, dials and beats in the studio, uncertain about where it was all going to take him. "My mom gave me her last $400 dollars to take this recording course," he says. "Then the rest is history, because after that I was at the institute every day. I wasn't making any money, but I didn't care. I knew that all I wanted to do was record bands. I took any band who would let me record them. "There was a time when things were so hard that I questioned whether or not I made the right decision. But now, when I look back, I definitely would do it all over again to get where I am now." By 1992, Clark had established himself in Detroit, earning production and engineering credits on major label and independent releases by such diverse artists as Detroit's Gangster Fun, Kid Rock, Esham, the Final Cut, Big Chief and ICP, the frenzied white rap duo (2 Dope and Violent J) who would become Clark's closes and most prolific clients. Clark's work with ICP has included independent releases, singles, albums and contributions to movie soundtracks for The Fear (Warlock Records, 1995) and The Great White Hype (Sony, 1995). He has just finished the most recent of 11 projects with ICP, the full-length album The Great Malinko due out on Hollywood Records in March. Clark hooked up with ICP when he was working at the Tempermill studio in Ferndale when they were still recording exclusively for their Novi-based independent label Psychopathic Records. Violent J says they were dissatisfied with their producer. Hard-pressed to seek out a replacement, they found Clark at the Tempermill by thumbing through the phone book. But their first session recording, an early demo with Clark in 1992 proved, to be the start of a lasting creative/business relationship. In the four years that followed, ICP made the leap from local to the RCA label Jive, and then on to their current home, Hollywood Records. Through all these phases, Clark has produced and engineered for ICP and also written music with them, making him an integral part of the duo's recording process. "Mike is incredible as a rap producer and a writer," Violent J raves. "And he is nothing like this music. His style of dress, the way he talks, it doesn't seem like he could be as funky as he is. I don't know where he gets it. It's sheer magic. "He lays it down from I don't know where. I've worked with a lot of producers and I've never seen anything like it. Like I get my influences from N.W.A. and a lot of Detroit rap. I don't think Mike really listened to that stuff before. I don't know where he got his skills, but he's the best. Mike can do rap, alternative, rock, funk. He can do anything. He's gifted. In 1992, Clark continued to prove his abilities as a producer, engineer and writer. And his flexibility, by branching out with a string of local rock and pop artists like Heavy Water Factory, Charm Farm and the Gories. That same year, Clark came full-circle from rap to rock to funk when he go the attention of George Clinton while the two were working at the Disc in Eastpointe. "George and I were both working at the Disc," Clark says. "I had just done a remix of a Parliament song with Esham on it. When George heard it, he liked it and asked me to work on some tracks for this new Primal Scream record he was producing." Clark continued to work with Clinton after that, producing, remixing and engineering on records by Parliament/Funkadelic, Fred Westly & the Horny Horns, and the 1994 Primal Scream release Give Up But Don't give Out on the UK-based Creation Records. Clark is currently working with Clinton on a few tracks for a new Primal Scream record due out sometime in 1997. True to his multifaceted feel for a beat of any kind, Clark recorded and produced the Trashy Brats punky 1996 label debut Out of the Closet for the Ohio-based Circumstantial Records, a Demolition Doll Rods seven-inch, "I Wanna OD"/"Dream," for the Seattle-based Bag of Hammers label, and he just finished a record for local pop confusers Outrageous Cherry also scheduled for release in 1997.