Marc Kinchen is a long player in the dance game
Marc Kinchen, aka DJ and producer MK, has seen empires rise and fall. The 44-year-old began his career in the early 1990s — deep geological time by music industry standards. All has changed utterly across intervening decades.
“Back in the day you would DJ to promote yourself — you wanted to get hired to do remixes and produce,” says Kinchen from his home in Los Angeles. “Nowadays you produce and do remixes in the hope of getting hired as a DJ. It’s basically the opposite of how it used to be.”
The Detroit native, who plays Dublin’s Wright Venue on December 29, first came to attention during the house music explosion. Singles such as ‘Burnin’ were huge in discerning clubs such as Sir Henry’s in Cork, while his remix of Nightcrawlers’ ‘Push The F eeling On’ was an international chart hit.
“I had no idea I was having hits,” he recalls. “The internet didn’t really exist back then. I didn’t travel — I had no grasp of what records were successful and what ones weren’t. It was only much later that I discovered how big those songs really were.”
With his DJing commitments vastly increased, it’s been difficult to carve out time for writing and recording. However, he’s been knuckling down in the studio of late with a view to putting together what would be his debut solo record.
“I thought it would be easy on the road,” he says. “I discovered that I worked better at home. I’m relaxed. You don’t have the pressure of having to catch a flight or be at a venue. Most DJs, I have found, feel the same. On the road, you’re listening to music all the time. It’s hard to get into the studio the next day and be totally inspired.”
He has just put out a new single, ‘My Love 4 U’, which has been championed by tastemakers such as Pete Tong and Annie Mac. Kinchen has also stayed busy as a remixer, reworking artists as diverse as Bastille, Rihanna, and Lana Del Rey.
“When you’re working with someone like Rihanna you definitely want to make it banging,” he says.
“You’ll want to go that extra mile because you know a lot more people are listening. If you are remixing some indie artist, you know it isn’t going to get that push. It’s going to be promoted differently. With an artist such as Rihanna, you have an awareness that it is going to be out there.”
Kinchen has fond memories of DJing in New York in the 1990s, when he crossed paths with totemic figure such as Frankie Knuckles. The scene was far smaller; the music, he believes, of a generally higher standard.
“There weren’t a lot of DJs and there weren’t a lot of good producers. It was a lot harder to make music back then. Nowadays every kid can make a track on a laptop. Back then, you had to really know what you were doing.
"You didn’t hear as much music, but it was of a high quality, with really good production. When you put out a record in the ’90s, you wanted to make sure it was a great. A test-pressing was going to cost you $500. You weren’t going to spend $500 on something you didn’t know was good.”
He doesn’t feel the rise (and apparent fall) of the youth-oriented EDM scene has impacted on his career especially. Yet Kinchen does stand in opposition to the EDM vogue for DJing using with pre-recording mixes. If you’re not doing it in the moment,what’s the point?
“When I DJ, it’s like I’m doing a live remix. I often use live equipment, drums machine and so forth. When I do a live mix, it’s something I’ll probably never make again. It’s unique to that moment, which is what I love about it. Nobody wants to pay for music anymore. But you can’t fake going to see your favourite DJs. That’s something you can’t bootleg.”
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