Music Tuesday Spotlight:MK837

This week I am excited to give you a deeper look at the brand new music label, MK837. You may be hearing the buzz about this label through facebook, twitter and Tastyfresh but I’m here to bring you the first interview with the artists behind this God-inspired project.

Real Names:

DR: Dave Richards… oh wait my real name… David Richardson

KN: Kevin Neely

CR: Chris “deeflash” Reiche

Label Name:

MK837

Genre of Music:

Electronic Dance Music (Breaks, House, Tech house, Progressive House)

How this label came to be:

DR: I’m sure we all have a different story. For me, it was a
combination of wanting a new challenge and answering the encouragement
given by Joseph Mercado of Next Dimension Music and many in the
community at Tastyfresh.com. There of course was this other issue that
I could never find the right label to shop tracks to. It’s not that
I’m a no talent hack, but that my “sound” is just different from the
labels I kept shopping tracks to.

KN: I’d previously had stints running BTU Recordings and Tektak Music.
For various reasons, neither label really worked out. Dave had
mentioned starting a record label several years ago, so I decided it
was a good idea to have a go with Dave. Chris is really skilled at his
craft as well, so it only made sense to include him as well.

CR: Like Dave, I had been producing a bunch of really great tracks
that were having a hard time getting signed for labels because they
didn’t sound like every other track the label had already signed.
Rather than compromising my sound, I felt it was time to start
releasing my tracks myself but I did not want to sacrifice
distribution by only being able to put my tracks on a limited amount
of sites. After talking with Dave and Kevin, I found that were all in
similar situations and pooling our experience together made the most
sense.

What is the Purpose/Vision for your label? Explain:

DR: Overall, it’s simple: Good music with a high level of integrity.
We want to our fans and our artists to feel that we are on the level
with them and providing them quality music and well… service in the
case of the artist.

KN: Our label exists to be an example of how to run a successful label
and maintain a certain standard of quality, be it musical quality or
professional quality. Labels like NDM have set the bar for what a
label run by Christians should be. We hope to use their example and
raise the bar yet again.

CR: I feel that our label exists also as an outlet to reach out into a
community where it is sometimes rare to find individuals who care
about helping people succeed rather than labels that are only trying
to make themselves succeed. I feel that being people of integrity and
working with others with honesty will shine a light into the dance
music community.

Where do you see the label in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?:

DR: Either thriving or gone. Either way… without debt. Ideally, on
Beatport.com. It would be cool to be on Sasha’s regular top 10 or
something like that. The bottom line though is that if we have a good
product, good marketing and a good reputation, we should be around and
thriving nicely for a very long time.

KN: I think we can be a very successful label in three years.
Everything’s in place to make it happen. We just have to keep
polishing our perfection, so to speak. There’s no reason any music
label shouldn’t be successful. Sometimes, you just have to step back
and determine what’s going wrong. If we fail, it’s because we didn’t
properly analyze our shortcomings.

Would you put out “Non-Christian” music? What qualities will you look for in an artist?:

DR: Yes. Yes we will release “non-Christian” music and even some music
written by non-Christians as well. What we won’t do is put something
out that rubs wrong up against Philippians 4:8. We don’t exist to
exclude. We’re a label run by Christians with integrity. We’re not a
Christian label that is only concerned with pleasing Christians who
are looking for music by other Christians. Kevin will speak more to
this, but what qualifies you as an artist we want to sign is good
music that I’m not afraid to let my wife and son listen to AND at the
same time, it must be able to destroy the dancefloor.

KN: Absolutely! Christ didn’t just speak in church, did he? If we’re
to reach the world, we have to be in the world. Just because you’re in
the world doesn’t mean you have to be of the world. That doesn’t mean
we’re going to allow just anyone on our label though. There are
certain production standards that have to be met in order for us to
release. Being the gatekeeper of the label, so to speak, I’m looking
for crisp production, clean sounds, quality content, and style within
the scope of the label.

CR: I agree, in order for us to reach the world for Christ, we cannot
pick and choose who we “accept” into our circles and who we exclude.
God is giving us a voice into the dance music culture and in order to
reach that culture we need to be able to work with all sorts of people
and show them what Christ’s love is like.

What are the benefits of working with MK837?:

DR: For us? None. It’s all work. Especially right now. For the
artists, it’s a chance to work with people who will do what they say
they are going to do.

KN: We’re going to do our best to give the artist a fair shake. Plus,
free donuts on Thursdays!

CR: Kevin, I will be expecting fresh donuts delivered to my door on
Thursday morning.

What can we expect to see from the label in it’s first few months?:

DR: I just finished reviewing our releases for the next few months.
You’ll see a lot from the three of us. Later in the year though, we’ll
be expanding our releases to include both new and familiar faces.

KN: Lots of really cool stuff! Just keep checking back on mk837.com to
be up to date. Also, join us on facebook at facebook.com/mk837

CR: Like Dave said, we’re gonna be releasing a lot of stuff from the
three of us that we’ve been holding on to and are ready to release to
the wild. In the months following those releases, we’ll have some
really solid releases from some other great artists.

What are you most excited about?:

DR: Learning how to do something new and putting to use what I’ve
learned over the past few years running Tastyfresh.com and promoting
my own music. It’s just a new adventure for me with some new benefits.

KN: Having a successful project with people I respect, whom I also get
to call friends. I’m also excited about not having to do everything
myself, which is taking a bit of getting used to. Ha!

CR: I’m excited about getting these tracks out that are some of my
best yet. I’m really looking forward to working with some new artists
and helping them get their music out there.

Links to your music/Contact you:

www.mk837.com is all you need to know. From there you will find
demo submission information, our social networking pages, the latest
news, release information, Kevin’s free album and more.

Anything else you want my readers to know:

DR: I’ll take the 5th on this.

KN: I’m listening to “The Cardigans” while typing this.

CR: Sidechain your basslines.

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