Today we went down to the recording studios to meet up with local musician, Mike Bissett. He is currently recording an EP, and we had a lovely chat about his music, his band, and his love for Jersey Shore.
Tick Tock: So what is your favourite episode of Seinfeld?
Mike: Ermm… the one with the contest, do you know that one?
Tick Tock: I’ve never watched it before.
Mike: You’ve never watched Seinfeld?
Tick Tock: I don’t know what it is, is it a TV series?
Mike: Yeah Seinfeld was a TV series, in the 90s.
Tick Tock: Is it better than Jersey Shore?
Mike: No, but Jersey Shore is pretty great. I mean, there’s no writing in Jersey Shore, that’s reality television.
Tick Tock: Jersey Shore is horrific.
Mike: It’s amazing, got the ‘situation’ here. Get my creep crew together, going fist pumping!
Tick Tock: So Bissett last time we saw you, you were playing at Heaven in London with your band Boxer, what have you been up to since then?
Mike: Are you gonna call me Bissett through this?
Tick Tock: Sorry, Mike, it’s a habit.
Mike: Well what happened then is, we were playing with a whole band, there was four of us, and we all sort of went home for the summer and stuff like that. I was mainly just writing and finishing songs, hoping to come back and sort of hit it hard. But unfortunately our bassist Karl has just started up with another band, so he doesn’t really have time to do this, which sort of shot us in the foot for playing live. It means that we can just record now, or I can just record without having limitations.
Tick Tock: You mean; having to do what other people want?
Mike: Well, ermm.. I guess so. Well I won’t have to worry really about playing it live till the end of the year now, when the thing gets released.
Tick Tock: So how many tracks are going to be on your EP?
Mike: I think six, maybe seven, I’ve got a few shortlisted. I guess we’re gonna come in here, record what we can, and thread an EP together that roughly makes sense, banging tunes!
Tick Tock: Is there a lot of new songs on there that you’ve written recently?
Mike: Yeah well most of them are new, I think there’s only going to be two from the set list that we played at Heaven. Predominantly new stuff ………. Big muff.
Tick Tock: Get your big muff away from me! So also what is Boxer, because it’s like a band, but there’s people changing round all the time and you’re the only one who …… stays?
Mike: Well I’m the only one who writes the songs.
Tick Tock: So it’s like Mike Bissett and guests?
Mike: Essentially yeah. Well I didn’t want to be a solo artist, I would prefer to be a band.
Tick Tock: You don’t want to be a singer/songwriter?
Mike: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to put a record out under my own name, everyone would just call me Bissett.
Tick Tock: Everyone calls you Bissett already.
Mike: That’s true, it’s just a good surname.
Tick Tock: Do you know how long it will be until the EP is release?
Mike: Early next year, optimistically. We’ve just started tracking today, we’re hoping to get all the tracking done by Christmas time, and then get on with mixing, and maybe some overdubs. And then we’re going to do a show at the end of it, so we need to figure out how the hell to do that.
Tick Tock: Great! I’ll let you get on with recording then, thanks Mike!
Well we'll keep you updated on how the EP is going, here's a link to Boxer's Myspace page where you can listen to some of Mike's tracks:
BoxerBand
Article by Charlotte Holden
Saturday 30th
Soul Cellar - Halloween Voodoo Lounge - featuring Science of Eight Limbs - £5.00 Adv - Click for more info
