From an early age Steve Bird was immersed in music by discovering vinyl turntables and practicing several instruments. Influenced by the English alternative scenes during the 90s, he became a Dj and then a beatmaker. From 1999 he released productions under the alias Mr Bird. His compositions are based on samples with notes of guitar and funky synths. After four albums and dozens of Eps released in physical on various labels, in 2022 he launched "Bird Beats" at Tangential Music. 36 instrumental hip-hop tracks in 9 volumes. Back on more than twenty years of passion for groovy music.

Where did you grow up?  And what was it like?

I grew up in Newcastle, which is a city in the North East of England, It was a cool place.  I think as it was so far from London there was always a good independent spirit there and it always had a good music scene, though maybe not as well known as say Manchester, Liverpool or Bristol.  Maybe this was a good thing, as it meant we felt free to create whatever we wanted in our bands and music making.

Were you raised in a musical environment?

Yes, my Dad worked as a lecturer but he always played in bands in his spare time, he is a piano player and guitarist and he also plays some percussion. There were always guitars, and a piano in the house. I should be better at playing the piano but I’m still more of guitarist than a pianist!  At some point he also had a Hammond (with full size Lesley Speaker) in the living room, and 4 Fender Rhodes.  Sadly I was always too broke at that time to buy one of them when he sold them on.  I remember jamming with his favourite Black Stratocaster through the Lesley speaker once when my folks were out and probably terrifying the neighbours.  I also used to buy a lot of vintage record players when I was really young, the kind you would stack up with 45’s and have it automatically play each single on the stack.  I think that was the start of my Dj career way back then ahaha.

Was it hip-hop or funk that came into your life first?

Funk for sure; when I was a kid my Dad would play James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, and a lot of soul music.  Also Reggae, Pop, 60’s bands etc.… Then in the early 80’s breakdancing hit the UK so we were all into all the new Electro sounds.  I was saving my pennies (literally) when I was 13 to go and buy hip - hop and electro imports from one of the record shops in town, my big fav at that time was “Juice” by the World Class Wreckin' Cru, an early Dr Dre production from 1985.  I was then an Indie kid in the mid late 80’s, and a raver as the tail end of the 80’s left and transformed into a crazy decade of Techno hip - hop and funk, whilst still producing and listening to lot’s of different types of music.

At what point did you decide to dig vinyl and to be a Dj? What was decisive for you? 

There wasn’t ever really a specific point where I decided, I think that as I grew up with music and always buying and playing records it was a pretty natural progression into then playing those records for fun at parties etc., and then it just kept rolling… I think at the moment I’ve been enjoying a bit of a break from DJing and that leads to more time and focus in the studio, so I hope to be releasing lot’s of stuff in the next couple of years.

Did you start to dig 7’s or 12’s?

The very first music I bought myself was on cassette; it was a crazy Sci-Fi Cybermen soundtrack of the British TV programme Dr Who, by the Radiophonic Workshop.  But I like both 7 and 12 formats, though now I prefer to play with Digital or 7”s as it’s easier on my old bones hehe (and I live on the 5th floor with no lift so 2 big bags of 12”s now nearly finishes me off).

What was the British scene like back in the day? 

There were a lot of free parties and raves back in the 90’s, crazy parties in warehouses and forests, some of which were maybe powered from illegitimate sources ahaha. But I was really into the Techno scene at that point, then after that also got really into Drum and Bass - that was actually the music which I first started to produce.

When did you start to travel to Portugal and why did you end up living in Lisboa?

I went to Portugal for the first time in 2006, and I travelled between Newcastle and Lisbon for the next 3 years.  I then made the decision to move there permanently.  I went to Lisbon for love, I’ve now been here for 13 years and it’s definitely home!  Of course I miss my family and friends, but they all love Lisbon so it’s great that they can now come and visit again post-pandemic.

How many records are in your collection at this point ...

I’ve no idea how many, my collection isn’t that big, I sold quite a bit of stuff in the last couple of years with COVID impacting on my DJ work so it’s a bit more slimmed down now, but I still buy vinyl when I can and love to go digging in the many record shops in Lisbon. It’s not massively organised ahaha, it’s a big mix of funk, hip - hop, house, broken beat, disco, reggae, jazz, library music, sound effects and spoken word records!

At what point did you decide to be a beatmaker ? 

Hmmm…well I played Cello for 3 years until I was 12, then I started to play guitar in bands in my teens, then I bought a TASCAM 4 -track cassette Porta Studio so I could record the band, and I got really into the recording side of music. Then a friend told me he had enrolled on a Music Production access course at a local college, which had a brand new Music Production and Technology course in a new building! So I did three years there studying music production, synthesis, recording, electronics, and early versions of Cubase DAW etc.  But the course was also important as with my first student loan I could then buy a sampler (no free/affordable software or DAWs then), and an ATARI ST for the sequencing. A lot of the essentials regarding beat making I was taught by a friend who would (patiently) explain where all the different breaks came from and their sources, which was all-new to me at that point! 

Do you collect other things… can you tell us about your passion for vintage stuff?

Mainly music related stuff, guitars, drum machines, synths etc., I don’t have a lot of vintage stuff really, though If I do see anything HiFi or stereo related in the flea markets of Lisbon I still get tempted but the studio is full enough already ahaha

Has your way of beatmaking changed since your first album in 2001? And has your musical production gear evolved? Are you still sampling?

Probably not ahaha! When I was first studying music production and working with a sampler with very limited memory (like 32 seconds on my totally upgraded sampler at the time), I was making mainly Drum and Bass, and you had to get very creative and economical with how you approached chopping up beats, as you literally didn’t have the space for long samples.  So everything was sampled at 45RPM and then pitched back down on the sampler to save space!  The big change for me was when I moved from hardware sampler to Ableton Live in the early 2000’s, after using Cubase and Logic etc. I really liked Live and it felt to me more like an extension of what I had been doing on my samplers.  It also opened up new possibilities of being able to chop and process beats together, which I liked a lot. I still have my AKAI 2000 sat here in my studio in Lisbon and also an S5000 in my Dad’s attic back in the UK, it’ll probably stay there as it’s be more to post here than it’s actually worth!

Do you practice scratching often?

Nope, I used to scratch quite a bit on my own productions, I still do very occasionally but nowadays I tend now to play more guitar and synths! It does depend on the track; if it’s an instrumental hip-hop track then I’ll probably dust off the decks or ask a better scratcher than me to record some ideas!

You do a lot of instrumental music, but you recently released "Better Place" with John Skweird. How did you meet him and how did the collab go?

Yes I do, but I’ve also worked a lot with many different vocalists over the years, lot’s of this material never got released for one reason or another, there’s quite a back catalogue of my stuff unreleased. I wrote an album for the label BBE with the UK singer Greg Blackman, which we made by collaborating online over a 3-year period!  I didn’t actually meet him in person until a year after the album was released!  I met John through a label that was going to release an album of mine, they put me in touch with him and then that album didn’t happen in the end, but I stayed in touch with John and we did this track together. The collaboration went well and we are currently doing some more tracks together. The lyrics are a bittersweet tale of a loss of faith, a man at the end of his tether searching for safety and redemption!

Why not make a title in Portuguese?

Well I’m English and John is from Trinidad and Tobago now living in New York so neither of us is Portuguese… I have worked with some Portuguese singers but the tracks so far have mainly been in English, I recently remixed a track in Portuguese, it's "Jogador"  by the singer Milton Gulli for the Tangential Music label in the UK I’m currently working with.

What about Tuga rap, do you listen and spin some?

Yes I do, although I haven’t been going out or playing so much (for obvious reasons) these last couple of years, things are getting better so hope to start going to see some gigs again!

Do you think music necessarily contains a political engagement?

No, I don’t all music does, although I think it has been and still is a very important method of communication over the years and is still a way of confirming identity, soul and self-expression, which in itself can be a a political statement - especially in cultures where music has been forbidden or censored.

When you are being asked to remix a track, how do you proceed: you go with the flow or to a different bpm, direction on purpose?

All depends on the track, usually I’ll make a decision first about the tempo and whether to leave it the same or speed it up or slow it down, then I’ll start digging through my beat library trying often hundreds of breaks until I find one that fits the vibe I’m looking for, then generally I’d chop up that beat and tweak it to make a new version of that beat, before starting to find percussion etc.  I then start to do the same processes with other elements of the track, deciding what to keep, what to play new etc., then I’ll jam a lot of ideas from my synths and guitars, and finally then start to edit. 

What is your best memory as Dj?

Probably the best was doing a warm up set for Fat Boy Slim, who was doing a secret set backstage of the Dance tent at the Glastonbury Festival.  This was after a day of working and partying so we were a little the worse for wear even before starting.  It all went very well despite missing record bags, pints of Vodka and Orange and lot’s of other shenanigans.

The other would be at one of the nights I was doing here in Lisbon for 2 years leading up to the pandemic in a great venue called Crew Hassan.  Me and my mate Dedy Dread built up a Wednesday night into one of the best parties in town, we had so much fun and every Thursday was a hangover day ahaha.

And your worst memory?

Ahahaha loads…a funny one is getting asked to play at a party in Lisbon (before I was living here) where I took a big bag of 12’s on the plane, and then carried them up and down the hills of Lisbon to the party only to find out they just had a bad stereo with one little built in turntable on the top that would only start automatically.  So between each record I had to wait for the system to reset so I could take that record off and then play the next…it was tough gig but I did it ahaha

Last word?

If you are lucky enough to do what you love then do it every day and you may one day find some gems in the dirt

Interview by Coshmar Dj