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Music - M.A.R.R.S
Pump up the Volume was made by the guys from Colourbox with some other musicians and DJ’s. It was the first UK produced hit of sampled music and MARRS were sued by Stock, Aitken and Waterman for their troubles. This was because it contained a sample of one of their songs and also because PUTV knocked Rick Astley off the No. 1 slot. I don’t know where Peter was, but they asked me to make the Promo very quickly. I had the tape of the space footage from the Music Box job. We filmed the dancer, Cath Coffey, who years later had her own minor hit single, I spent a few nights in the edit suite and bingo a No. 1 and a proper scratch promo. I wish I’d done it for a percentage not a fee.
As soon as it hit No 1. I got a call from someone who claimed that the footage was his, or rather the tape that the footage was taken from was his. He was asking for money so I passed him on to Ivo at the record label. The footage was public domain, but since it had been taken from his tape, maybe he had a case. I think Ivo paid up. He was probably punch drunk from the Stock, Aitken and Waterman lawsuit. In the end they had to re-record the record to take out the dodgy samples. It sounds very similar. We recut the promo a little too. Lots of people loved the promo. But when it was shown on Top of the Pops they couldn’t show the bit with the bungees because someone had just died on the Noel Edmonds show doing a bungee jump.
One of my proudest moments was having Beavis and Butthead snigger over it and ask, "What was that all about?"
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