Drake’s Radio 29: Raife Burchell

Raife Burchell has done a lot of different things in the music business. The most accurate description of his world right now is probably music supervisor, as the founder of Dirty Soup, although that doesn’t quite capture the strange and wonderful places a career in music has taken him. He’s performed live on The Tonight Show, recorded at Abbey Road and, last year, won a British Independent Film Award for his work on Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love.

With Dirty Soup, he’s worked with Fred again.., dug deep into East London’s underground garage scene, recorded Harlem gospel choirs and world-class orchestras. He’s even found himself coaching Academy Award-winning actors through intimate on-camera vocal performances.

It’s quite a CV, but Raife’s story really starts somewhere much simpler: a five-year-old boy in a south coast pub, his dad’s fruit machine and the opening drum roll of Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic”, and it’s this feeling of discovery that propels us through the latest edition of Drake’s Radio, compiled by Raife to celebrate the moments in music that changed his life.

Crosstown Traffic

The first time music really hit me was a hot summer's day in our home town on the south coast of England, when I was five years old. My dad was having a beer in his favourite pub and I was standing there with my arm wrapped around his leg while he played the fruit machine.

The sun was pouring through the windows when a set of thunderous drums exploded from a speaker on the wall like a bomb had gone off. It was Mitch Mitchell playing the opening to Crosstown Traffic. I'd never heard anything like it. I was completely transfixed. All I could think about was how much I wanted whatever it was that coming out of that speaker in my life.

Songs In The Key Of Life

My dad was absolutely obsessed with Stevie Wonder. He would put Songs in the Key of Life into the tape machine of his Ford Capri and teach us all the backing vocals while he sang Stevie's parts. I still know every single harmony line.

No one shaped my taste more than Jamie, my older brother. We lived in a small town with no music scene whatsoever, and he introduced me to so many artists I never would have discovered on my own. The Jam were the first band that really bonded us. It wasn't just the records. It was the clothes. The hair. The attitude.

I remember my dad taking the two of us up to London one day so we could buy boating blazers and Sta-Prest trousers. To me, it wasn't about politics or standing up for your rights. It was about the excitement. The energy. It was about being a little bit like Paul Weller and a lot like my brother. Looking back now, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today without his unwavering passion for music. He showed me the way.

Bruce

My dad took us all up to Wembley Stadium for the Amnesty International concert in 1989. I was thirteen. Bruce Springsteen was headlining but we were there to see Sting. The plan was to hit the road before Bruce came on. But as we were getting ready to leave, my dad said, "Let's stay for one song and see what all the fuss is about."

The lights went down and the low din of a Hammond organ rang out. Bruce strutted to the centre of the stage, grabbed the microphone and shouted, "One, two, three, four!" Then... bang. "Born in the U.S.A."

It was unreal. As that first snare drum hit it felt as though the entire stadium disappeared and I was standing inches from Bruce's face. He had me and every single person in the stadium in the palm of his hand.

Off The Wall

I remember my brother getting really into Michael Jackson, and so naturally I was all in too. We shared a bedroom, and would end up having dance competitions in front of the mirror, taking turns trying to outdo each other, to my brother's vinyl copy of Off the Wall.

I got so into MJ that I asked my mum to buy me a pair of tight black trousers, taken up just enough to flash my bleach-white socks when I moonwalked round the kitchen. I don't remember anyone in my family giving me any stick about those outfits. That's either selective memory or they were all being incredibly kind, because I must have looked like an utter tit.

Breakdance

The summer after that Amnesty concert, I fell into a breakdancing obsession. I used to play Chaka Khan's I Feel For You while attempting the world's most god-awful headspins in our living room. I'd walk around our local town centre carrying a huge piece of cardboard under my arm, challenging random kids to a "break-off".

My mum passed away last year, and my sister found the red studded belt I used to wear tucked away in one of her drawers. I couldn't believe she'd kept it all those years. Looking back, neither The Jam nor breakdance were ever really about the clothes. They were about finding out who I wanted to be.

The Purple One

In 1984 I'd rush home after school and sit for hours watching back-to-back videos on MTV. One of those videos was Purple Rain, another song that's stayed with me my entire life. Every time I hear it, I stop whatever I'm doing and turn it up super loud.

Prince, more than any other artist, has always been my one. I've seen him play tiny venues and huge arenas, everytime he walked off stage, I remember thinking, he can't possibly go back to a hotel and just be normal. Years later, just after I'd started Dirty Soup, I was lucky enough to spend some time with him in Copenhagen. We chatted and ate freshly baked lemon drizzle until about two am when a bunch of cars turned up and we were all shuttled across town, where Prince and Larry Graham played another marathon jam session of funk covers to about two hundred fans in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

I was asked by Prince's security not to film anything from the side of the stage. It was the one and only time I ever broke "the code". I've still got the footage, and I watch it back whenever I need a little shot in the arm. I've danced with Madonna. I had a pint with Paul McCartney. But nothing comes close to that night in Copenhagen.

The Chelsea Hotel

New York has been a huge part of my life in music. My first ever paid gig as a drummer was for a singer who was living at the Chelsea Hotel. She fancied a change of scenery for a while so we did an apartment swap.

Her apartment was at the front of the building, next to the famous sign overlooking 23rd Street. I hadn't realised what I was walking into back then, or quite the magnitude of the place. Bob Dylan. Leonard Cohen. Patti Smith. Janis Joplin. Sid and Nancy. I just knew I wanted to get to New York.

My biggest influence back then, though, was another one of my brother's tip-offs, the one and only Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. I was completely obsessed with Russell Simins' drums on Acme. I still am. I was lucky enough to see them play at CBGB's while living at The Chelsea, recording a live show for a Japanese TV show, with only about fifty people there — one of the greatest gigs I've ever seen.

Just Keep Playing

A year before I moved to London in 1995 to chase my dream of becoming a professional drummer, I got completely obsessed with Oasis. I learned every one of their songs on the drums and, of course, went all in on the look. One day I got the train up to London to wander around Denmark Street looking for a new drum kit. I came out of Tottenham Court Road station and, through the crowd, saw Noel Gallagher standing there at the top of the escalators.

Before I'd even had time to get nervous I said, "I'm a huge fan of your band." He looked me up and down and said, "Yeah... I can see that, kid." We talked about what bands I listened to, what kind of drumming I was into, then looked at me and said, "Alright then, kid. The only thing I'll say is... just keep playing. That's all you've got to do. Honestly. Just keep fucking playing, don't ever give up, and don't take any shit off nobody." Then he gave me a quick man hug and disappeared down Shaftesbury Avenue.

Where I Stood

One of the best things about being a music supervisor is that I've got to work with many of my heroes. I was lucky enough to do just that with Joey Waronker, who's played drums with everyone from Beck to Leonard Cohen and, most recently, Oasis.

A very dear director friend, Ringan Ledwidge, who we sadly lost far too early, asked me to work on a Nike project he'd just shot with Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Wayne Rooney, and we settled on making the soundtrack entirely from solo drums. I got a message to Joey, and a couple of days later he invited me over to his LA studio to make an incredible six-minute solo drum piece.

After that session, Joey and I stayed in touch. While demolishing some pancakes one morning I asked him what he thought about Oasis potentially reforming. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights and just said, "I can't talk about that." He quietly passed me the maple syrup, but a few months later Joey, now Oasis's live drummer, very kindly sorted me a couple of tickets to their final Wembley show.

I've been to thousands of gigs, but when they played Don't Look Back in Anger and all ninety thousand people ripped into the chorus with Noel, the feeling was beyond anything I'd experienced at any concert.

I looked out across the crowd, singing at the top of their lungs with Noel, then down towards the spot where I'd stood all those years earlier with my family, watching Bruce Springsteen play Born in the U.S.A. And it hit me so hard. What an incredible adventure music has taken me on.