Love to Infinity is a family affair! The remix and production team consists of Andy, Pete and Dave Lee. The brothers have been in the business for over twenty years and worked with some of the finest international talent including Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey and Gloria Estefan.They have just finished work on a remix of Radka’s “Hey Boy” for PRO MOTION that you’ll be hearing in full very soon!

We recently caught up with Andy who told us how they got their start with U.S. artists, about the experience of remixing Michael Jackson and their current collaborations with artists like Kristine W.

INTERVIEW

RADKA HEY BOY (LOVE TO INFINITY RADIO MIX)

MADONNA INTO THE GROOVE (LOVE TO INFINITY SPECIAL EDITION MIX)

GLORIA ESTEFAN EVERLASTING LOVE (CLASSIC PARADISE MIX)

What did you grow up listening to in the Lee household?

We had quite an eclectic mix of all different styles, from stuff like ABBA in the ‘70s and Bee Gees and things like that through to Van Halen and Human League. We’re always listening to sort of poppy things and stuff that was commercial. Anything that was in the Top 40, really. I used to listen to the Top 40 chart countdowns and things like that. I used to pay quite a lot of attention to what was going on at a young age, like 8, 9, 10. I think that’s how it all started out for us.

You’ve been in the business now for a long time (20 years, this year). Why do you think you’ve had such longevity in the business when there’s been so many changes and so many people have come and gone?

I think ultimately the bottom line is Pete and I are both musicians, so we both play everything. Every time we get a Love To Infinity mix, we don’t hire people into doing it, we literally play all the instruments ourselves- guitar, keyboard, bass, and all the drums and stuff. We’ve always been very versatile that way, so we’re not just doing one style and I think goes back to what we used to listen to as kids- we’d be listening to Van Halen one day and then Human League the next or Madonna or something like that in the early ‘80s. We were always into different styles. We’ve never really just done one style in Love To Infinity, we’ve always done dance-y stuff and then we’ve done pop stuff and then we’ve had quite a big career just doing radio mixes for record companies, whereas they’ve gotten a ____ “We just spent 8 months doing an album, we can’t find a single. Can you mix this to make it radio friendly?” We’ve always been quite versatile, so I think that’s why we’ve lasted; we’ve moved with the times and gone with what sounds commercial. And, also, the other thing is, we don’t actually DJ- Love To Infinity has never DJed- it’s just something we’ve never gotten into. A lot of the DJs have a particular sound that fits to them and what they play, whereas we don’t really have one sound, we do all sorts of different things. I think that’s probably why we’ve lasted. It could just be people like what we do, who knows?

How did you get your start working in America with U.S. artists?

Our first U.S. break came because I’d engineered a track by a band in the U.K. called SubSub called “Ain’t No Love, Ain’t No Use” and it was really big, it got to #2 and off the back of that, the singer, Melanie Williams, got signed to Sony and we ended up doing some of the mixes for her solo record. Because Sony network everything around global offices, the tracks ended up at Sony New York and Frank Cirillo, who was part of Epic at the time, picked up on it and so did Larry Flick at Billboard, because Larry was doing all the Billboard columns then, and between them they sort of collaborated together and said, “well, why don’t we get these English guys to have a go at doing Gloria Estefan?” This was in ’94. So I got a call from Frank Cirillo out of the blue, I’d never spoken to him before, basically saying, “We want you to do Gloria Estefan’s ‘Everlasting Love’”. And then Larry Flick phoned me up; I’d known him for a while before because he’d always written nice things about Love To Infinity in Billboard. Larry said “Oh, me and Frank have been having a chat and we think it would be great if you started doing some American things” and that’s really how it started. It was Larry Flick and Frank Cirillo who basically started us off and once we did one for Sony, it just turned into a snowball; we must have done about 50 records, me and Pete and David, over the years for Sony for everyone from Michael Jackson to Celine Dion, we’ve done loads and loads for them. That’s how it kind of started- it’s all down to Larry and Frank.

As you were just saying, you’ve remixed a bunch of very famous artists, like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey. Who were you most excited to work with?

We wanted to work with Madonna for ages. Love To Infinity has been managed by John Saunderson for 17 years; he’s now our publisher, actually, he works for our publishing company that we’re signed to, so we still we still work together but he’s now on the publishing side of things. John, basically pursued Madonna for us and got us the Madonna mix. That was really, really good that we got to do that. We’ve been huge Madonna fans since we were kids. The one that really stood out for us was the Michael Jackson one. When we got asked to do that, it was kind of surreal to be in our studio and hearing Michael coming out of the speakers. It was also a surreal experience because I’ve never heard somebody give such performance on the vocal tracks. When you’ve got a 2 inch multi-track, you can push all the faders off and solo things and when you listen to Michael’s vocal all the way through, you could hear his feet taping and making clicking noises with his fingers and slapping his thighs and what have you and you can just imagine him doing the whole performance down the microphone in the studio, he wasn’t just quietly doing it. There’s loads of ambient noise going on under the track. If you did them acapella, you’d be horrified at the noises underneath. But you could tell the guy was giving an amazing performance to get that vocal, he wasn’t just standing there and that really stood out for us. Again, that was another Sony track. We were all in tears the other month when he passed away. It was a sad time.

Did you ever get to meet any of the artists that you remix? Do you ever collaborate in the studio?

Yeah, we come over to the States quite regularly. A lot of the time, we’ll come over and record vocals with the artist and then we’ll bring all the files, or tapes as it used to be, back to the U.K. and we’ll finish the mix over here. So, yeah, we do end up meeting people and working with them. Although, some of them, we’ll do a succession of mixes for them- some artists like Gloria, we’ve done like 8 tracks for, or Atomic Kitten   we’ve done like 8 or 9 tracks for them over the years, so you end up building a relationship with the people and get to know them, so that’s good.

Do you ever get personal feedback from the artists?

Yeah, once you get to know them and you’ve worked with them, they’ll phone you up saying “Yeah, we really liked the mixes”. Again, going back to Michael Jackson, he sent us a load of bottles of champagne when we finished the mixes with a note saying “I love your mix guys. Thank you very much.” I got a knock on the door from the courier and this package arrived, so that was very nice.

What would you consider to the highlight of your career to date?

That is a hard one. There have been so many records that we’ve done. Stuff like Faith Hill’s “The Way You Love Me” was absolutely massive. She ended up shooting the video to our mix and it almost became the A-Side. Stuff like Diana King, that was really big, yet another Sony artist, and Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey. It took a while to get a Mariah mix because Dave Morales had her locked out for years and did all her stuff. When she finally left and went to a new label, we got to do a Mariah track, so that was quite nice. There have been different peaks, sometimes you’ll be into an artist and suddenly you’ll get the call saying, “Oh, we want you do to Diana Ross”.

You’ve done a couple of projects with artists in particular, like Kelly Llorenna “Sweetest Day of May” and Kristine W. “The Bus”, and that actually reached #1 over here in the U.S.

Yeah, we’ve just had 3 consecutive #1’s with Kristine off her new album, “The Boss”, “Love Is The Look”, and “Never”. Kristine’s a good friend, she’s like our big sister and we speak to her pretty much every other day and help her with all her mixing and producing. It’s good to be so involved with an artist because we’re part of her team. Kristine’s an amazing singer, she’s got a brilliant voice and it’s nice to work with her because she’s very good to work with. And Kelly’s a similar thing. Kelly Llorenna is our favorite singer in the U.K., we just love Kel, she’s brilliant. She joined Love To Infinity two years ago and we’re currently in the middle of recording a load of new tracks with her and she’s got an awesome diva voice. Over here in the U.K. everyone calls her the “Queen of Clubs” because she’s out every weekend PAing hit after hit after hit. The girl must have like 8 Top 20 hit records. She’s very, very good. Plus, she’s a good friend of ours. We like Kelly a lot, she’s very, very good.

Besides those artists, have you got any more plans for other collaborations?

At the minute, we’ve just nearly finished the new Carina Lirola album. Carina’s one of our artists and it’s sort of a similar style to Pink meets Kelly Clarkson meets Katy Perry. We produced it all, we just got Tom Lord-Alge to do the mix on the new single for her. That’s turned out really, really good. That’s coming out in February of next year. We’re quite excited about the Carina project because it’s very radio-friendly, American, so we hope to come back to the Stages soon to promote that.

Besides those things that you’ve got going on, anything else that you’re working on right now? Who else have you remixed recently?

We’ve just been mixing The Noisettes for Mercury in the U.S. so that was a nice one to do because they’re all over, everytime I turn on the telly now in the U.K., they’re one. They’ve just done all the festivals, like V Festival and Glastonbury. They’re very, very current and she’s got such a distinctive voice as well and when you hear The Noisettes you know it’s them. They’ve got such a unique style, so that was a nice one to do.