Dan Grech-Marguerat

Daniel James Grech-Marguerat (born 11 July 1981 in Bedford) is an English recording engineer, record producer and mixer (also known as Dan Grech). His production pulls together a blend of alternative and pop genres, his recent work with Foe was described as producing a "Polished Pop Gem" adding "His signature is all over it".^[1]

Past work includes The Vaccines, Lana Del Rey,^[2] Keane,^[3] Hurts, The Kooks, Scissor Sisters, Dragonette, Moby^[4] and Howling Bells.^[5] A mutual admiration led to work with Keane who quoted his work with the Vaccines as one of the inspirations of their latest album Strangeland.^[6][7]

Biography

Dan Grech started out at RAK Studios in St Johns Wood London as an assistant recording engineer before going on to work with acclaimed producer Nigel Godrich for 2 further years. Whilst working with Godrich he worked as an engineer on records including Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Divine Comedy, Beck and Radiohead, winning a Grammy Award in 2009 for his work on Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' which picked up 'Best Alternative Album 2009'.^[8]

In 2006 he mixed the Scissor Sisters second multi-platinum selling album entitled Ta-Dah, including the hit single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'",^[9] co-written by Elton John, which went to number one in 8 countries, and top 10 in 20 countries.

Later that year Grech mixed the debut record for the band Dragonette,^[10] starting a long term relationship with the band. He went on to co-produce and mix all their work to date. More recently the band had huge success with the track Hello co-written and performed with Martin Solveig.

In 2007 Grech produced two tracks for the Radio 1 Established 1967 anniversary album, one for The Kooks and one for The Kaiser Chiefs. Following on from this he went on to produce several tracks for The Kooks second award winning album Konk. Also in 2007 he mixed the Moby album Last Night.

2008 – 2010 saw Grech work with artists such as Sam Sparro, Just Jack and Ke$ha, as well as produce the album Radio Wars for Australian band Howling Bells.

In 2010 Grech produced the debut album for The Vaccines, What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?. In an interview in May 2011 Pete Robertson, The Vaccines drummer, discussed what they saw as a "Really great partnership" and the aspects Grech brought to the Album.^[11] Grech produced this hotly tipped band who reached number 4 in the album charts in 2011. The record went on to reach platinum in the UK and is still the band's best selling album.

Other releases in 2011 included singles and remixes for the award winning English band Hurts, the hugely popular Lana Del Rey EP "Video Games".

Grech went on to mix the multi-platinum selling Lana Del Rey album Born to Die which went to number one in over 15 countries in February 2012 has sold over 7 million copies to date.

In May 2012 Keane released their 4th studio album Strangeland, which Dan both produced and mixed. In a recent interview pianist Tim Rice-Oxley told NME, "We loved what (producer) Dan Grech did on The Vaccines album. It had just come out. He'd also done stuff with Radiohead and produced the second Howling Bells album, which I loved. As luck would have it, Dan was a massive Keane fan, so we ended working with him.".^[12] Strangeland went straight to number one, went Gold within three weeks and is still selling well.

2013 saw the release of Long Way Down the debut record for Tom Odell, winner of the BRITs Critics Choice Award.^[13] Odell performed at the Critics Choice Award launch where 2012 winner Emeli Sande presented him with the award. In addition, Odell was named in the BBC Sound of 2013 Longlist, Odell was named 'songwriter of the year' at the 2014 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony.

Grech went on to produce The Brink in 2013, the second album for the award winning Australian band The Jezabels.^[14]

He also mixed tracks for 2014 Brit Award nominee Chlöe Howl and BBC sound poll artist Say Lou Lou, as well as co-produce tracks on the album Exile for award winning UK band Hurts.

Grech's main focus in 2014 was Liverpool based guitar band Circa Waves. He produced and mixed their debut album which entered the UK charts at number 10 in April 2015. Singles from the album included "Fossils" and "T-Shirt Weather", both of which were A-List Radio One records. When discussing the recording of their album in a recent interview, frontman Kieran told Echo magazine: "Dan is amazing. He’s so collaborative and open to any kind of suggestion. I’d always dreamed about making our first album and to do it with him was everything we could have hoped for. We didn't know what to expect but he was so encouraging and we came out feeling that we’d learned loads." ^[15]

2014 ended with Grech co-producing and mixing the music for the much talked about John Lewis advert which featured "Monty The Penguin". The track was a Tom Odell cover of the John Lennon song "Real Love".

More recently Grech mixed the debut album for Josef Salvat which is set for release later this year, including Josef's cover of Rhianna's "Diamonds" which featured on a Sony Bravia advert.

In 2015 he also mixed the debut album for Denai Moore which was released through Because Music, and singles from the top 10 Rae Morris Album Unguarded, including A-list Radio one record "Under The Shadows".

Grech is credited as an executive producer and mixer on the forthcoming Keaton Henson album.

He is currently working with American breakthrough artist Halsey and has recently been in the studio with British star Birdy, as well as a handful of up and coming new artists.

Discography

References

External links

• Official Website