Check out the interview below with the dynamic artist, MK Ultra! Discussing origins of the project, musical inspiration and reactions to the music. MK Ultra is unapologetic and unafraid to highlight issues so many shy away from in everyday life, whilst also delivering an immense amount of creativity.

1. What is the story behind MK Ultra?

I got hit by a bus literally. Almost died. Long story short, the doctors pumped me with fentanyl and I nearly died again. I went cold turkey. That was pure agony but it was either my life or that. 

Looking back on that experience I saw a correlation between myself and the MK Ultra experiments. I never expected to start a musical project as I was working in the business but after escaping death so many times I wanted to go forward. My life shifted so much I didn’t want to repeat the past.

I started collaborating with my best friend (Producer / Mixer: Aaron Bagley) since childhood because he knows me better than anyone. To be that raw and vulnerable I needed to work with someone who understood my situation. 

2. How long have you been making music?

I’ve been making music since my early teenage years. Aaron and I were both beginning to play instruments and we started writing songs together at….I believe the age of 14. I fell very fortunate he is still involved as he is mixing and mastering my new album called, Therapy Sessions that I recorded during the pandemic.

3. Where do you draw inspiration from for both the lyrical and musical elements of your tracks?

Lyrics come extremely easy as I can be an emotional rollercoaster. Everyday, I’m writing lyrics throughout the day because they naturally come to me. 

When I start writing I often don’t know what the lyrics are even about. As the process deepens I know exactly what it’s about. I have several different ways of writing the music. It always starts the same, with a burst of creativity and I build from there. 

Coming from a music business background I worked daily with Abandoned Pools on two albums. Tommy Walter had been my favorite artist since I was a teenager. There is no amount of money that can buy that  experience.

I collab with more artists than most artists because of my music business and producing background. I have other guests as well on the new album, Therapy Sessions.

Right before the pandemic I released a single with the Healthy Junkies. It’s a song called, Kill The Hate we wrote that together pulling back the certain on the UK and America’s dysfunctional governments. We performed that song together on tour and it was beautiful.

4. You discuss some dark subjects in your songs, do you find this to be cathartic?

It’s cathartic in two ways.

I feel people would rather turn their blind eye than use their third eye in our society. So with The Hollywood Holocaust EP the concept was to tear the system down and start over. With those songs I was exposing how dirty and heartless Hollywood is and how Hollywood manipulates us all through media. 

I was acting as a mirror to that society through art and to open the eyes of others by showing them the brutal truth they don’t want us to see. So I’m not endorsing Hollywood I’m saying, this what’s really going on. It’s not pretty and glamorous. It’s scary. It’s fucked up.

Second, my music is also very introspective. If people assume what I’m writing about is negative that’s for them to judge. From the beginning I decided I wasn’t going to have a filter with my voice. I see more positivity coming out of my music than negativity because I’m raw. When someone messages me saying a song I wrote saved their life, how can that be negative? If people are singing or playing instruments to my songs that creates more awakened minds and voices. 

If you take everything I say at face value I can see people getting the wrong impression. If they look deeper, I feel like more people would find I’m just a complex person using their voice that many are too afraid too.

5. How do people respond to your releases?

When I first came out in 2017 with The Hollywood Holocaust EP people either loved it or hated it. Mainly because of what I stood for and people missing the point. I think it’s a beautiful thing if people hate or love my music. It means it’s reaching people and they are feeling something, thinking and triggering something within them. Maybe they feel what I feel but are too afraid to express it?

I welcome people wanting to cancel me and talking shit about me online.  If people make up a lie that’s just part of being a controversial figure. 

If these people took the time to ask me why? I think their perspective would completely change on me personally and me as an artist. 

6. What does the future hold for MK Ultra?

While I was living in Hollywood I was saying exactly what they didn’t want me to say, so things got weird. I hoped that would happen. I moved to London and once I played the festival circuit I started getting multiple record label offers. During and after the tour they increased but speaking bluntly I think they saw money before the message.

I have my own label Ultra Recordings/Visionary Music and I decided to start working with a great label / booking agency called Music Junky in Austria to release my next album, Therapy Sessions around the summer of 2022 when I’ll be touring Europe again. 

I will be releasing singles from the album strategically with Music Junky up until the release.

For me dropping an album during the pandemic doesn’t make any sense without touring to back it up. So instead of rushing it I can perfect it my art.

As long as I’m alive I’ll always have something to say, love it or hate it. I’m fucking here to stay.

Follow MK Ultra:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MKUltraMusic.gov
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mk_ultra_music
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mkultra_band
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialMKUltraMusic
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/01yfgITKDLknbrE1Jnrh4X?si=XiALVB4bRfCGF4fkGjYdJQ&dl_branch=1

Enjoyed reading the interview with MK Ultra? Check out more interviews and features on the Deviate Blog! Want to be featured – get in touch!