Mike Skinner says “most” of the songs he writes are “s**t”.
The musician – who recently retired his The Streets project and is now making music with former The Music singer Rob Harvey as The D.O.T – likes to work quickly when he’s in the studio, but admits his ideas don’t always turn out the way he hopes.
He told Vice.com’s ‘The Producers’ online TV show: “Essentially I like to work quickly and commit to stuff and then if its s**t, just throw it away. Which, in my experience, most of the songs you write are s**t. My strike rate is awful.”
Mike – who had four top ten hits in the UK as The Streets, including number one ‘Dry Your Eyes’ – also compares his new role as studio producer to being like the Indian dish chicken tikka masala, because they are both hard to define.
He added: “The producer, I think, is like a chicken tikka masala, everybody knows what one is, but you can’t actually define what a chicken tikka masala is because no two places do it the same.
“Now I’m in the studio with Rob Harvey and we’re doing a thing together called the D.O.T where he sings and I produce.”
Rob added he thinks The Streets fans will be surprised by how different the sound of The D.O.T is to Mike’s earlier material.
He said: “You’re going to be a bit disappointed if you’re a Streets fan. Well you could be – you might not be – because it is so different to The Streets. But we’re so excited at the moment, because it’s different, we don’t even really know what it is!”
‘The Producers’ is filmed at the Red Bull Studios in London, and each episode follows a different producer explaining how they approach working in the studio. For more information visit www.vice.com/en_uk/the-producers