Issue 018

October 2006

Interview with Mark and Kris from Mr Vice 

If you’ve been to a Cage Rage event, then no doubt you’ll have heard the pounding tunes that the fighters make their entrances to. If you ever wondered who was behind these stomping tracks, then say hello to Mr Vice, better known as collaborating producers Kris and Mark. 

First, tell us how you two came to be making music together?

Kris: We have both been producing and remixing music for years, and Mark has been signed to record labels and released music under various names in his career. In around 2002 Mark was in a band that came in to record at my studio, and we liked that way it all came together so easily. We then drifted into working together more and more, and eventually we became a team - making it official by going under the name of Mr Vice for our releases

and remixes

How did the Cage Rage gig come about, and where did the idea to produce a Cage Rage album come from?

Mark: Back in 2004 we produced a promotional track for Evolution Fightwear. After hearing it at a show, Cage Rage promoter Dave O’Donnell called to ask us to produce a new theme for their first Sky TV show. We produced the imaginatively titled ‘Cage Rage’, which was a hybrid drum and bass/metal track featuring hardcore metal band Brakesfailed, and the response was so good that we’ve been producing music for Cage Rage events ever since. 

Kris: We were getting reports from the people selling merchandise and DVDs at Cage Rage that loads of people were asking for CDs of the fighters’ entrance music, so on the back of that information ‘Cage Rage - The Album’ was born. We had thousands of people hitting our MySpace site to listen to the previews. Now it’s signed to a record label and iTunes, so things are looking good.

Are you fans of Mixed Martial Arts or is your interest strictly professional?

Kris:  Big fans, definitely. Between us we’ve seen boxing, Premiership and World Cup football matches, FA Cup finals, you name it, but nothing compared to the atmosphere at Cage Rage when Melvin Manhoef fought Cyborg . I had to record some vocals on a track the Monday after that fight, and it was such a struggle as I had screamed so much on the Saturday night! 

Mark: We became fans through one of our friends and musical colleagues initially. Tony Thompson is a superb musician and vocalist who has had several chart hits. He is also an MMA fighter and instructor. We watched videos of his knockouts and submissions, and also went to lend support when he and his students fought. As everyone reading this knows, once you’ve seen a few cracking MMA fights you’re hooked!

Kris: At one show, several opponents pulled out of fighting Tony and he didn’t want to go home without a fight, so he ended up in a free weight fight going up against a real mountain of a guy. Despite being stuck underneath his mount and getting fish-hooked, thumbed in the eye and generally battered, he found the strength to continually work and frustrate his opponent - after the ref stood them up he ended up slamming him and submitting him with a textbook knee-bar. MMA was my favourite sport from that moment on! 

What sort of fight do you prefer to see, a technical ground match or a stand-up war?

Mark: It’s great to see fighters showing technical ability in their ground game, but nothing lights the blue touch paper in a venue like someone who wants to keep it standing and is aiming to knock his opponent out. These are the situations you keep in your mind in the studio, when we’re producing the tracks - when the music gives you the same feeling that watching a stand-up war in that kind of atmosphere does you know you’re on the right track.

You‘re obviously closely attached to the UK scene; who would you say are your favourite fighters to watch? 

Kris: The first one I’m going to single out is Brad ‘One Punch’ Pickett. Aside from his fantastic entrances and making a Chas and Dave tune credible, he is great to watch, and I think he’s starting to convince even his harshest critics that he’s not just a young lad with a gimmick who comes out in hat and braces with a funny theme tune. I always really look forward to seeing Anderson Silva fight, because you just don’t know what he is going to pull out of the bag to win a fight, like the Anderson Elbow! I’ve loved watching Mark Epstein fight since I first saw him on a UKMMAC show because the ‘never say die’ spirit is there and you will have to knock him out or break his bones before he goes down, and you know that whatever the outcome there is going to be a war! 

Mark: Personally, I can’t wait to see Mike Bisping knocking some boys out in the UFC very soon! I was completely hooked on this series of The Ultimate Fighter.

Do you do any training yourselves, or prefer to keep a safe distance?

Kris: I have trained various styles such as judo as a kid, and later on escrima, Muay Thai and MMA - I did a few days training at a school in Thailand whilst on holiday, and that was a real eye-opener. Just when you think you’re going to collapse in the heat you’re introduced to the man that’s employed to dump iced water on you, massage your shoulders, arms and legs and chuck you back in there for another pad session!

Mark: I think I’m a Judo blue belt! It was a long time ago! (Laughs)

You’ve done entrance music for Ian ‘The Machine’ Freeman. If you could pick a fighter to do entrance music for, who would you pick and why? What sort of tune would you do them? (You could do a bass-heavy remix of our national anthem for when Mike Bisping is taking over the UFC….)

Kris: What a great idea! As a musician to have a track played at the UFC would be a dream come true, but as a British MMA fan to produce an exclusive track for a UK fighter who is undoubtedly going to tear it up on the world stage would be incredible. You’d get the loudest, hardest, nastiest version of God Save The Queen EVER! Mike, if you’re reading this..... We’re up for it if you are!

Music is a big thing with many fighters; they use it to inspire their training sessions and hype up their entrances. Is this something you are conscious of during the creative process? 

Mark: Definitely. With entrance music, what we try to do is recreate the energy from the crowd and the cage in the music, using techniques like crowd noise, Cage Rage commentary, explosions, cage door slams and generally big heavy production, so that the track played as the fighter enters the cage adds to the atmosphere and rocks the building! If a fighter uses our music during training and it helps, then that shows we’re doing our job right! In fact, we gave it to some fighters before release to test, and they described it as “the best workout CD ever”! We’ve used that phrase in our promotional material!