Pete Davis
Pete Davis (above, right)
My father was a musician and there’s always been music around me – before I could read I could guess which notes Dad played with my eyes shut.
During the war, Dad was captured in Poland, and while in prison he managed to get some instruments from the Red Cross and set up a swing band playing Glen Miller tunes.
The idea of music being an essential part of life surrounded me growing up, and took me through music school and on to the Guildhall in London.
In London I discovered synthesisers. It was the late 80’s and the first music computers were becoming affordable. I sent months hunched over a BBC model B and a second hand TV, adding more and more machines that could all run together.
My first visit to a proper studio was to Robin Millar’s (Sade) Power Plant studios in north London and soon after I was working with him as a keyboardist & programmer, getting my first professional experience recording with Black, Malcolm McLaren, Sharon Redd, The Farm & more.
After the dramatic implosion of the studios, I continued session work. I signed up with Native Management in 1997 as I started work with Bif and Matt on the second Spice Girls album. I followed the girls around in a mobile studio truck, recording vocals with Geri dressed as WonderWoman, and being continuously thrashed at Mario Car by Ade Bushby at Abbey Road.
I spent the next ten years making records and was introduced to modular synths by The Human League’s Phil Oakey during the recording of ‘Secrets’ in Sheffield. He showed me round the Doepfer system and sparked an obsession which was encouraged by Steve Osborne during the year long recording of New Order’s ‘Get Ready’ album in Bath. We used an old EMS putney, my Doepfer system, Waldorf, Oberheims, and Rolands; endlessly mashing sounds to make something raw and new.
I worked on my first films with producer and composer Marius de Vries: The Eye of the beholder with Ewen McGregor & Moulin Rouge; and it was while working with Marius I met my wife Anna.
In 2004 we moved to Stockholm, Sweden to start a family. I built a studio and started finishing tracks here. I was still travelling a lot: to Vancouver with Shakira, and London again with Spike Stent – making beats & keyboard parts for Gwen Stefani, Bjork, Enrique & others.
It was through Spike that I was introduced to Craig Armstrong whose new record I’ve been working on recently.
In 2010 I released, with James Banbury, the album TAP3, as the electronic duo Dadahack, the writing & recording of which ultimately led to James and I starting Component: a music company dedicated to commercials, film and television. Over the last couple of years we’ve worked with Saatchi’s, McCann-Erickson, JWT, Publicis and Fallon amongst many others.
The last year has seen pop recording for Sarah Brightman, Craig Armstrong, Maverick Sabre, Josh Osho and Morten Harket, and commercials for Cathay Pacific, Ford, Unilever and Procter & Gamble.