Level 42's Mark King owes his music career to his parents
In an interview with Contact Music, Mark said: "They bought me drums, they got me a guitar so that I could learn to play a bit of guitar and anything I wanted to do.
“My mum, bless her, she spent most of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, driving out to take me to a gig with the drums in the back of the car because I was way too young.”
King is best known as a vocalist and bassist. However, before co-founding Level 42 with brothers Phil and Roland Gould in 1980 and switching to bass, King was a a talented drummer.
He said: “I started playing in pubs when I was 11 years old, and I was sort of playing three nights a week at the age of 11.
“Consequently, my schooling went through the floor, and the teachers used to complain like crazy to mum and dad, saying I never did my homework, and this, that and the other. But for me, I knew what I was going to do.”
Level 42 took off internationally in 1985 with its sixth LP ‘World Machine’. Since then, the band has had six UK Top 10 songs and 7 Top 10 albums.
The bassist said: “I just had this blind faith it would, sort of, work out, and I wasn't aware of just how hard it was going to be to actually do that, not until I got there. But that's the beauty of being young, you know, the courage of the young.”
Now, 40 years on from the success of 'World Machine', Mark has spoken out about the consequences of artificial intelligence not just on the future of the music industry, but for the future of humanity.
He said: “The genie’s out of the bottle, so it's not something you'd be able to put back in.”
King noted how AI is being used to write songs and emulate artists’ voices. However, its musical implications pale in comparison to “if it gets too intelligent and decides that, in fact, humans are a waste of space.”
He continued: “How does it get controlled? Somebody's going to use it for bad. Somebody's going to use it for good. That's just human nature.”
Level 42 will embark on the 'World Machine' 40th Anniversary Tour this year with 32 shows, 26 September through 17 November.
Got to Level42.com for information and tickets.
