Meat Katie: the Difference Between House & Breaks is..-

Mark 'Meat Katie' Pemberton recently suffered much ill will from his erstwhile breaks compatriots after unilaterally deciding to embrace house music. Chatting to Mezz this week, the hugely talented London producer (who also runs his own label Whole Nine Yards and records for R&S as Avenue A) revealed he has few if any regrets. "House is such a huge market, and there are people buying my music these days who've never heard of me before," Mark said. "When I did 'Rotten.com' which is an out and out breaks track, people who'd bought my house music started buying that, so it's opened up a new audience."



Mezz: You're still best known as a breaks person, Long to Belong is almost a funky house album, what were you trying to achieve-

Meat Katie: "The album involved a lot of collaborations with other people and I particularly tried to enjoy myself. I just went in and made a load of tracks, enjoyed making them with no thought about making an album. The way I make a track is to have the idea before going in the studio and do a fair bit of pre-production really- I find the bass sounds I want and the drum pieces etc. Then when I'm in the studio the track usually takes on a life of its own. After a day I know if a track is working or not. If it isn't I get rid of it rather than struggling through. Nine times out of ten when you try and force tracks out, they don't sound that good."



Mezz:How much thought goes into your titles; e.g. 'Long to Belong-

Meat Katie: "I love title names and I'm really careful about them. 'Long to Belong' was about certain types of people. I come from the breaks scene, but as soon as I started doing four/four stuff, a lot of people turned up their noses. And what annoyed them even more was the fact that my music started being accepted in the house scene and that really annoyed some people. A lot of breakbeat producers will only make breakbeat and I've always thought wider than that. I'm not going to start making R&B or music that's right outside my field, but I felt as a breakbeat artist there was something I could bring to house music. It wasn't about me stealing from house music, or jumping ship (from breaks), it was rather about just trying out some different computer programmes and drum patterns. People like Steve Lawler, Anthony Pappa and even Pete Tong accepted it. I just changed the drum patterns and they liked it."



Mezz: So what's the main difference between the house and breaks worlds-

Meat Katie: "Record sales… And money, to be honest. The label's happier because they're selling more, I'm happier because my records are making money and I'm genuinely happier because I'm not being dictated to. The breakbeat scene is splintering right now. A lot of people are jumping aboard the garage tip and while that's not my scene, good luck to them. Everyone says I've jacked breaks in to go off and make house music, but the reality is that I'm selling breakbeat stuff to house people. I'm more confident these days. I just make music, man, let me do what I want to do."

Jonty Adderley

http://www.w9y.co.uk

http://www.kingsize.co.uk


Tags

• Meat Katie