Danger Mouse (musician)
Brian Joseph Burton (born July 29, 1977), known professionally as Danger Mouse, is an American musician and record producer. He came to prominence in 2004 when he released The Grey Album, which combined vocal performances from Jay-Z's The Black Album with instrumentals from the Beatles' The Beatles, also known as The White Album.[1] In 2008, Esquire named him one of the "75 most influential people of the 21st century".
Not to be confused with Danger Mouse (1981 TV series) or Danger Mouse (2015 TV series).
Danger Mouse
Brian Joseph Burton
July 29, 1977
White Plains, New York, U.S.
- Musician
- record producer
- songwriter
- Keyboards
- bass
- drums
- percussion
- guitar
1998–present
Danger Mouse formed Gnarls Barkley with CeeLo Green[2] and produced its albums St. Elsewhere and The Odd Couple. In 2009, he collaborated with James Mercer of the indie rock band The Shins to form the band Broken Bells; the band released three albums since then, with Into the Blue (2022) being the most recent one. Burton collaborated with rapper MF Doom as Danger Doom on The Mouse and the Mask and with emcee Black Thought on Cheat Codes.
Danger Mouse produced the second Gorillaz album (2005's Demon Days), Beck's 2008 record Modern Guilt, and four albums with The Black Keys (Attack & Release, Brothers, El Camino, and Turn Blue). In 2016, he produced, performed on, and co-wrote songs for the eleventh studio album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers titled The Getaway. He has produced and co-written albums by Norah Jones (Little Broken Hearts), Electric Guest (Mondo), Portugal. The Man (Evil Friends), Adele (25), and ASAP Rocky (At.Long.Last.ASAP). He has been nominated for 22 Grammy Awards and has won six. He has been nominated in the Producer of the Year category five times, and won the award in 2011.
Early life and music career[edit]
Brian Joseph Burton was born on July 29, 1977 in White Plains, New York.[3] He spent much of his childhood in Spring Valley, New York. Burton moved to Stone Mountain, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, where he attended and graduated from Redan High School.[4] He lived in Athens, Georgia, where he pursued a degree in telecommunications at the University of Georgia on scholarship,[4][5] and where his trip hop works (The Chilling Effect (1999), Rhode Island (2000), and Pelican City / Scanner – Pelican City vs. Scanner (2002)) were released while he was a student.[6] While at the University of Georgia he was introduced to Nirvana, Pink Floyd, and Portishead, and came to know the indie rock scene in Athens,[4] remixed work by several local artists, including Neutral Milk Hotel,[7] and DJ'd for University of Georgia radio station WUOG-FM.[5] From 1998 to 2003, Burton created a series of remix CDs and records under the stage name Danger Mouse. He performed in a mouse outfit because he was too shy to show his face, and took his name from the English cartoon series Danger Mouse.[8]
Philosophy[edit]
In an interview for The New York Times magazine, Danger Mouse was compared to a film auteur, basing his music production philosophy on the cinematic philosophy of directors like Woody Allen. "Woody Allen was an auteur: he did his thing, and that particular thing was completely his own", he said. "That's what I decided to do with music. I want to create a director's role within music, which is what I tried to do on this album (St. Elsewhere)... I can create different kinds of musical worlds, but the artist needs the desire to go into that world... Musically, there is no one who has the career I want. That's why I have to use film directors as a model."[9]