Tilt into the dark side
Mick Wilson and Mick Parks, a.k.a. Tilt. (Inset) How the duo looked when I interviewed them back in 2002.
SOME two-man teams were doomed from the outset: Cain and Abel, Butch and Sundance, Newman and Baddiel - even Batman and Robin reached an ignominious end, as anyone who's watched the abominable new Joel Schumacher movie can attest.
But sometimes, two become one rather neatly. Take Mick Parks and Mick Wilson; besides DJing worldwide as Parks and Wilson, the two Coventry lads have enjoyed chart success as the band Tilt, writing their own tunes as well as remixing and producing other artists, and their new album, Painting on Silence, has just been released in the UK.
If that wasn't enough, Mick Parks is also one half of another dynamic duo; two years ago, he and business partner, Keith McDonnell, established the dark and trancey Baroque Records, which blasted off with Odessi's 'Moments in Space' and has continued to grow ever since.
Two heads really are better than one.
“When you’re touring and DJing, it’s not glamourous.”
"The benefit of being together as a group is that we've both got different ideas that manage to gel together," says Mick Wilson in his relaxed bass-heavy tones. Sprawled out on his hotel bed, happily engrossed in the outstanding assets of the contestants on Blind Date, he appears enviably carefree about tonight's Lush! gig.
His partner, Mick Parks is slightly more sensitive to the pressures of the premiere DJ-cum-producer lifestyle, especially as his workload recently went through the roof with the arrival of his baby boy, Leo.
"When you're touring and DJing, it's not glamourous," he laments. "You're in a hotel room, you go to the gig, you're just thinking about sleep and the next gig. We're starting a tour shortly, I think it's 16 dates, playing everywhere from Russia to New Zealand. Look at that on paper and you'd probably think, 'Oh God, that must be amazing', but it just ain't. You have to be quite a stable sort of person to do that."
Either that, or you'd have to be two people. The Micks anchor each other well; Parks' vivacity ("I like working intensely hard in the studio") is balanced by Wilson's more chilled perspective. There exists no conflict of interests between Parks' involvement in Baroque and his work with Wilson. Indeed, Baroque affords the lads the opportunity to suss out all up-and-coming new artists for possible collaborations.
"We're looking at maybe doing a few albums with people at the beginning of next year," Parks says. "I don't want to say too much yet. There's a girl involved, she writes, she sings, she can play. After the success of Dido, we're thinking of going in that direction - maybe not as poppy."
Besides the aforementioned Dido, some of the female artists the pair have already worked with, or whose tracks they've remixed, include Karen Ramirez, Melanie C, and more recently, Maria Nayler on the Tilt track 'Headstrong'.
"An important part of using vocalists is that they've got to go out there and push it," states Parks. "You have to justify it, you can't have some girl who looks like she's singing into a hairbrush, looking over her shoulder, waiting to come off. We've worked with a lot of vocalists who couldn't get past stage one. They'd sound fine in the studio, but... you gotta think about the whole package."
“There is a dark side to us both... I mean, he’s into cutting people.”
As showmen, both have expressed a desire to write music for one of Alexander McQueen's electrifying fashion parades. All that decadent romanticism, bizarre clothing and garish make-up, combined with a record label named Baroque, suggests there may be more than a dash of Goth in them.
"I'm an old Goth at heart," Wilson confirms.
"Well, he's been in a few Goths," Parks quips on the button, before adding: "No, there is a dark side to us both, but not the whole black eyeliner thing. I mean, he's into cutting people."
Ooookay.... when Angelina Jolie admits that sort of thing in an interview, it's strangely titillating; when I hear it about Mick Wilson, who's chuckling away still sprawled out on the bed like a well-fed lion after the kill, all I can do is swallow nervously and start calculating the distance to the door. I quickly steer the conversation away from the subject - I steer it all the way to America, in fact. Was it easy for the pair to crack the States?
"We've been going back and forth from the States since '94," says Wilson. "It's been an ongoing thing. In the last two years, it's really blown up. The injection of UK sound has helped to push UK DJs in there."
"People over there have a very short-term memory," adds Parks. "The only way to crack the States is do what Paul Oakenfold did and just keep going over there, doing all the small gigs. There are no dance-music radio stations, but there's a good underground network. When we used to DJ over, we used to sign CDs and we were like, 'where are they getting these from?' They were being downloaded from internet sites."
Well, now American fans can pay for the privilege. 'Painting on Silence', which features such artists as Jade, Deep Funk Project, and Pete Lazonby, was released in America back in October. The album, now released in the UK, is a two-disc trance mix compilation, something Parks and Wilson have hitherto shied away from. So, why now?
"We had a free range of what we wanted really," explains Parks. "We've had opportunities to do other things, but what you tend to find happens is the record company will go, 'use these tracks' and then it just ain't your thing. We just had a recent experience with another label - I won't mention their name - but it ended up being a nightmare. With this album, we had America in mind, we didn't really think about the UK. A lot of people say, 'it's a little bit deep for you,' but I think we're quite diverse and we can play to pretty much any crowd."
And any country. After their global tour ends, the lads will be turning their attention to some new Parks and Wilson material.
"We'd really like to do a U2 remix. We think we can do a better job that anyone else," Parks enthuses, before respect for the master prompts him to add: "apart from Oakey, of course."
Now lads, modesty will get you nowhere.