Mike Hedges

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Hedges returned to the UK in 1969 and was working in Haywards Heath as a squash coach when he was offered a job as a tape op at London's Morgan Studios. His first engineer credit came in the form of Heatwave's Central Heating. In 1981, he left Morgan Studios to become a freelancer and start Playground Studios in Camden Town, then moved on to work at Abbey Road Studios for ten years. Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Associates, and Wah! were among some of his earliest clients. In 1990, he purchased Chateau de la Rouge Motte, a home in Domfront en Poiraie in the Normandy countryside, and retired for less than a month in 1992. He renovated the chateau to act as a new studio and outfitted it with a 16 channel EMI TG12345 Mark IV mixing desk, which he bought directly from Abbey Road Studios in 1983. The desk was originally installed in Abbey Road Studios, and had been used to record The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and John Lennon's single 'Imagine'.

In Their Own Story

James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers recalled that Hedges greeted them with a hand covered in Normandy brandy and lit on fire, which is how Hedges claimed to welcome every new band. Among the albums recorded at the chateau were Lush's Split, Manic Street Preachers' Everything Must Go (BRIT Award recipient) and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, and Travis' The Man Who (partially). Hedges moved the Mark IV desk back to London in the early 2000s, where it resided in the front room of a studio, and in 2017 was auctioned off for £1.4 million. Hedges has also worked as part of the musical team for a number of films including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Doom Generation. In 2009, he was working in an A&R role at Sony BMG, where he signed the Priests. He also discovered Friar Alessandro in Italy in 2012.

Reader's Guide

Hedges was born in Nottingham, England in 1954 and grew up in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where he attended a Jesuit school. He comes from a Catholic family. He has four children. The source does not specify his exact role with the Cure, but states that he is 'best known for his work with the Cure' and that his 'creative input and influence dramatically impacted the trajectories of bands such as the Cure'. The source does not mention specific Cure albums or sessions.

Did You Know?

• Mike Hedges was born in 1954 in Nottingham, England and grew up in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where he attended a Jesuit school.
• His first engineer credit was Heatwave's Central Heating.
• He bought a 16 channel EMI TG12345 Mark IV mixing desk from Abbey Road Studios in 1983, which had been used to record Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and John Lennon's 'Imagine'.
• Hedges greeted Manic Street Preachers with a hand covered in Normandy brandy and lit on fire, claiming that was how he welcomed every new band.
• In 2017, his EMI TG12345 Mark IV mixing desk was auctioned off for £1.4 million.