Having begun his craft in his early teens – putting on underage “bring your own gargle” gigs in his hometown of Belfast and learning the ropes of the sound desk along the way – he soon began recording local bands and building up his repertoire, both as a skilled hand and a discerning ear.
The early start soon began to pay off. After graduating from a Creative Sound Engineering course at Liverpool’s prestigious Institute for Performing Arts, he stumbled upon a promising group of Northerners playing at Manchester’s Night and Day Café and offered to record their debut EP. That band was the Arctic Monkeys and they, by all accounts, ended up doing pretty OK.
Mike has racked up a host of notable production and mixing credits since then. He found significant success producing and mixing several albums for The 1975, while building ongoing relationship with artists like LANY, Walk The Moon and Nothing But Thieves – of which he has produced multiple critically and commercially successful albums.
His previous production and mix work has included artists such as Yungblud, Muna, Half Alive, Twenty One Pilots, Jeremy Zucker, Lauv, The Killers, Beabadoobee, Foals, Hozier, Jake Bugg, Ben Howard, and many others.
“I find that a lot of records these days don’t sound very human; I love records that have a personality and vibe” he states of his hands-on methods. “I like to hear the true spirit of a band rather than just hearing the sound of technology.”
Mike is now based in Los Angeles in an incredible studio; a smorgasbord of instruments, live rooms, pedals, tape machines and analogue gear.
