Martin Rushent

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Martin Rushent was born in 1948 in Enfield near London and became one of the most important British producers of punk and new wave. He began in the early 1970s as a sound engineer at Advision Studios, where he rose to chief engineer and then went freelance. At United Artists he recorded sessions with, among others, Shirley Bassey and Buzzcocks, and he persuaded the label to sign the Stranglers, on condition that he would produce their music. He made their albums Rattus Norvegicus, No More Heroes and Black and White.

Music and breakthrough

Around 1980 he wanted to get away from guitar bands and learned to work with a Linn LM-1 drum machine, a Roland MC-8 Microcomposer and a Jupiter-8 synthesizer. He built his own studio Genetic, with a Synclavier and a Fairlight CMI. There he recorded Homosapien, Pete Shelley's first solo album. Those recordings attracted the attention of Virgin, which asked him to produce the Human League. The album Dare from 1981 earned him a BRIT Award in 1982 as best British producer. Generation X, Altered Images and the Go-Go's also worked with him in the 1980s.

Influence

In the 1990s he distanced himself from the studio and opened a dance club at Greenham Common. Later he built a home studio and produced, among others, the Pipettes and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, whose singer is his son James. Rushent died in 2011. His work shows how punk producers began to use machines and so pointed the way to synth-pop.

Listening