Gerry Parchment
SOUND ENGINEER . PRODUCTION . LIVE
Mix engineer, music composer, live shows, touring
Birmingham, born and bred.
In 1985 Gerry became employed at DEP international as tape op, aged 19. There he quickly learned how to make tea, play pool and occasionally touch the equipment.
After the sad and unexpected passing of UB40s live engineer, he was offered the baptism of fire of engineering their live gigs (sink or swim), with his first gig being Wembley Stadium. This was a role which he held until 2003. During this period of time he toured the world twice as UB40’s live sound engineer.
When not on the road he continued to learn more about the studio (under the tutelage of engineers such as Alan Cowes and John Shaw), eventually finding himself as UB40’s engineer both live and in the studio. This culminated in recording and production of multi-platinum selling albums ‘Labour of Love 2’ and ‘Promises and Lies’.
Gerry was also the producer for Ali Campbell’s solo album ‘Big Love’.
As with all things the time was right for both parties to move on and he considers himself extremely fortunate to be asked to mix live for Incognito, who toured extensively without carrying their own front of house mixing board. Thus every day he was faced with a new equipment challenge at venues across the globe. Again it was a case of adapt or fail. Luckily the band were really good!
More recently his live engineering work has included Happy Mondays, Lamb, Example, BBK, Skepta, JHus and Slowthai. His career as one of the UK’s most experienced and talented live sound engineers continues to thrive. The length of his career has seen him transfer skills through the analogue era into this digital age.
More recently he has found himself back in the studio, creating and producing writing and arranging acts such as Slococo, Dubcherry, Stephanie McKay, Carlene Lawrence, and Lulu James, among other projects yet to be announced.
As founder member of the band Slococo and Dubcherry, he wanted initially to make a number of Dub instrumentals. This developed into a studio and live project concept with Helen Bentley, Bob Macallister and Derek Simmonds.
Gerry has been heavily involved with the following projects and record lables:
Acid Jazz
Mother
Mother Earth
Bostin’
Ruff Tone
When asked what his 3 most important credentials are, he chooses:
1. Playing in Pretoria South Africa after abolition of apartheid
2. Ampex gold award for Promises & Lies
3. Engineering Skepta at Alexandra Palace live on Beats radio 2016 (was grimes truly first solo event of such magnitude)
Gerry has developed his own unique production sound, influenced by a wide range of music. He grew up listening to his parents’ records, mostly country records (LPs) and (7”) reggae records by artists such as John Holt and Pat Kelly. He is strongly influenced by Reggae, Drums and Bass, Jungle and Hip-Hop.The first album he bought was ‘The Specials’, of which he knows all of the words. He admires artists that don’t feel that they have to compromise, such as Fela Kuti, Peter Tosh, KRS-One, and Linton Kwesi-Johnson.