Nick Halkes

Nick Halkes (real name Nigel Halkes) is a U.K. based music industry executive known for signing and breaking multi-million selling^[1] dance act The Prodigy.^[2] He is also a part-time lecturer on the music industry to BA and MA students at University of Westminster in London.

Career

Nick's most major A&R success with the band has been their 1.3 million selling "Invaders Must Die" on which he has a co-write on the title track,^[3] a cut which enjoyed a list rotation on BBC Radio 1. Nick also contributed two remixes to the project, remixing "Warriors Dance" with Richard Russell as Kicks Like a Mule^[4] and remixing "Take Me To The Hospital"^[5] with Adam F as Adam F and Horx.

Nick was one of the founders of leading indie XL Recordings,^[6] working with acts such as House of Pain, SL2 and Liquid before taking up a position as a director at EMI and launching the Positiva label,^[7] which is now home to David Guetta and Deadmau5. Whilst here, Nick signed MOBO award winning artist Adam F^[8] and also released a string of dance tracks by acts such as Reel 2 Real, Bucketheads, BBE and Alice Deejay helping Positiva to sell million of artist albums and singles alike.

After Positiva, Nick joined forces with Ministry of Sound who backed his Incentive Music start up.

Nick runs the business to this day and has been responsible for over 40 top 40 hits including multiple top 10 UK crossover tracks. The companies Art and Craft imprint is also home to many dance tracks by artists such as Delacey and Jaydee.

Nick also runs a music publishing business (with cuts from writers ranging from A-Trak, Mujava and Princess Nyah through to cuts recorded by The Prodigy, Sash! and Joey Negro) and both DJs and gets in the studio as one half of Kicks Like a Mule, which achieved Top 10 UK chart success in 1992^[9] with "The Bouncer". There was later renewed profile of the duo following the Klaxons cover of the song in 2006.

Recent Kicks Like A Mule studio activity has included remixes on Kid Sister and Major Lazer with a single also released on U.S. indie Fool's Gold under the revised artist name K.L.A.M. An occasional song writer, Nick recently co-wrote a track on the Kenneth Bager album that is now gold in Scandinavia plus also co-wrote a song which was recently cut by Japanese artist Maki Goto. He has also co-written with Rob Davis (co-writer of Kylie Minogue's global smash "Can't Get You Out Of My Head") and Kelly Price who co-wrote U.S. number one 'Déjà Vu' for Beyoncé.

More recently Nick has used the Horx moniker for collaborative studio activity with both Jonny L on a cut called ‘18 years’ and with Adam F and Redman on a cut called ‘Shut The Lights Off’ which was released on Breakbeat Kaos, the latter scoring a Zane Lowe ‘Hottest Record In The World’^[10] accolade. As Horx, Nick provided support DJ services on both the Prodigy U.K. Invaders Arena tour(including 2 dates at Wembley) and multiple dates on the European leg of the bands world tour. As K.L.A.M. the date sheet has included Bestival, Ministry of Sound and Fabric plus support dates on the Zane Lowe DJ Hero 2 Tour. Most recently Nick co-produced and co-wrote the single "Electric Boogaloo" for UK grime chart star Wiley. Nick was a keynote speaker at the 2010 'In The City' ^[11] music conference in Manchester and recently delivered 'masterclass' presentations at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, the Bristol Institute of Modern Music and the Brighton Institute of Modern Music. Nick has also contributed writing to the book Catch The Beat, which documents late '80s/early '90s underground club culture.

Nick also currently oversees the careers of rising stars Caspa,^[12] and Zinc,^[13] Adam F ^[14] and the acts She Is Danger^[15] and Engine-Earz Experiment.^[16]

References

External links

Nick Halkes on Myspace