Fred Ball - “I was just working nonstop and it is a big commitment, but if you love it, it's great.”

We are excited to share an interview with the incredibly talented Fred Ball. In the interview, Fred talks about his beginnings, musical inspirations and shares details of working with the stars. The audio-visual content was made possible, thanks to the team at Reload., who produced, shot and edited the video. The interview was conducted by George Sampson.

Fredrik William Ball is a Norwegian, Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum selling record producer and incredibly talented songwriter, living in London. Over his successful music career, Fred Ball has worked on projects for artists like Rihanna, Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Eminem to name a few. He has recently ventured into setting up his record label; Ballroom Music. A joint venture with Roc Nation. 

On a brisk March morning, the Studio Talks team alongside Reload. went to North West London to interview Fred Ball in his beautiful home studio, where he spends his time creating music in comfort. 

"I went to the local music shop and bought a sampler and didn't tell my parents."

Fred Ball

What music were you listening to as a child when you were growing up in Fredrikstad, Norway?

I think the first thing I started listening to was Kiss, the band, but that was probably more because of what they looked like than the music. I think most people were more into the image of them than the actual music. My first love for music was Prince and Michael Jackson. It was my oldest sister that passed on some records and I completely fell in love with it and I loved it ever since. It’s been sort of a red thread through all the stuff I’ve done.

Did you pick up an instrument early after?

We had a piano in the living room, I just gravitated to it and started playing on my own and then I had some lessons when I was a bit older, like early teens. A neighbour of mine gave me an old Atari 1040 and the funny thing with that computer, I mean generally it was a rubbish computer, but it came with a MIDI interface, it was built in. So, I got a copy of Cubase and I started sequencing in the basement.

At what age?

I don't know, 13, 14. It was a very basic black and white screen and I sat there... I inherited some money that I was meant to spend wisely when I was 18, it was put into a locked bank account. I think it was three or four thousand pounds and that felt like millions when you were a kid. I remember going to the bank one day and asking if I could take the money out and had my passport with me, I think I was 14, and they just handed me the money... So, I went to the local music shop and bought a sampler and did not tell my parents, I hid it under the bed. 

What sampler was it?

It was an Ensoniq EPS 16 Plus. Which is a bit of a classic. I still got it.

How was the music scene in Fredrikstad?

There was a bit of a scene and I played in a few bands. I got kicked out of the first band I was in.

What happened?

I think they based their band on Metallica and they were like; Metallica didn’t have a keyboard player, so we don't need one. But I didn’t like Metallica anyway, so it was fine. 

What sort of music were you into?

I got more and more pseudo-intellectual the older I got in my teens and I remember sitting in my basement, I was smoking a pipe at this point, I was like 15 or something, listening to a lot of jazz music and a lot of Bitches Brew and Miles Davis. A lot of prog-rock; King Crimson, Van der Graaf Generator, early Genesis, things like that. I definitely had a prog phase and I played in a local prog band. We normally went on stage and did shows and played only one or two songs in an hour or so because our songs were so long.

Where was the transition from listening to jazz and prog rock to then releasing the first Pleasure album, which features a lot of electronic influences?

That's basically when I moved to London when I was 20 or 21. I started again [by] sitting in my bedroom making music in the evenings, I had a day job and I was just making music. I came up with this idea that I wanted to make this sort of post-modern pop where I used different singers. Not trying to say that I was ahead of my time, but at that time the 'featured singer' thing wasn't the done thing. I remember I had to explain it over and over again when people said, "Who is the artist?" Well, I am the artist. "But who is singing?" Well, I’m not singing, someone else is singing... It just didn't make sense to a lot of people, but now it is the most normal thing. That’s how that started, and it was kind of my love for pop music and like I said my early influences.