PSB's remixers

Harding started in the music industry aged 16 at London's Marquee Studios in 1973, where he got to work as an assistant engineer under the guidance of top producers on albums for artists such as Elton John.
By 1984, a newly formed production team at The Marquee - Stock Aitken Waterman - was added to the list. Harding engineered and mixed their first chart successes, Divine and Hazell Dean, and their breakthrough international hit and first No. 1 single, Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)". Moving across to the PWL Studios in London, 'The Hit Factory', their success was unstoppable - for artists such as Rick Astley, Mel & Kim, Bananarama, Pet Shop Boys and Kylie Minogue. Harding's partnership (from 1986) with Ian Curnow in the basement studio of PWL saw them become internationally renowned remixers/producers, with multiple UK and American singles and club chart successes.
In 1992, Harding left PWL to set up his own production company, P&E Music, with Ian Curnow at The Strongroom studio complex in London.
Since the 2000s, Harding became closely involved in music education.

Phil Harding on It's A Sin (Miami Mix) and Always On My Mind (Remix): June 1987 and the USA clubs from Miami, Florida across to New York City were bouncing to the Miami Sound, so it became vital for us to keep up and keep in with this. I'm not convinced it took off in the UK or Europe in a big way in terms of mix genre, but there were plenty of big commercial records around that were representative of the sound that we would allow to influence us on this style of remixing – records like Company B 'Fascinated' (No. 1 in the US Dance Chart, No. 89 in the UK, May 1987).
We worked with the Pet Shop Boys (and their manager Tom Watkins) on a few projects - 'In The Night' (co-produced with the Pet Shop Boys in May 1985, the B-side to 'Opportunities' and made famous by its use as theme to the long-running BBC TV Series 'The Clothes Show'). After 'It's A Sin' in August 1987, we did the remix of their 1987 Christmas Number One hit 'Always On My Mind' and the co-production of 'I'm Not Scared' by Eighth Wonder both in November 1987, which Ian had co-produced with us, but the credit was wrong on the record when it only listed me. It was a regular occurrence in the early days for Ian and me because a lot of labels had got used to just putting my name on a mix since 1984. We had done a few Miami mixes before this one for the Pet Shop Boys - Bananarama 'I Heard A Rumour', Blue Mercedes 'Love Is A Gun' and Michael Davidson 'Turn It Up' - so we'd had some experience of doing them. Put together a couple of months after the song had reached No. 1 in the UK, my mix was used as the main 12" mix for its release in the USA, labelled 'The Latin Vocal Mix' and the sleeve had a sticker on that said "Remixed in the UK for the USA". It went on reach No. 9 in the US Billboard singles chart. Never receiving a release in the UK, it appeared labelled as 'The Miami mix' on an autographed Abbey Road limited edition (of just 20) CD called 'The Pet Shop Boys Compiled' for competition winners of BBC Radio 1's 'Pet Shop Boys Day' in September 1993. Ian and I weren't really aware that the mix was just for release in America, but we threw ourselves into it with our usual gusto and we were quite pleased to be pretty much left alone to get on with it, because Chris and Neil were known for wanting to be present during their remixes, as was to happen on the next remix we would do for them. We were blissfully unaware that this would not get a UK release.
The mix starts with the classic Miami high synth riff, which is not unlike the House style riffs we had been using for sometime with Mel & Kim, which kind of added a PWL sound to it. Once the agogo percussion bell came in, followed by the typical bouncy Miami-style bass line, iťs fairly obvious what type of mix we're building into. Fairly straight-ahead drumbeats are followed by our whip sound FX and some vocal triggers which are then followed by a female Spanish language spoken voice. Iťs not until 1'36" when the 'It's A Sin' huge synth chords come in that the listener gets a clue that this is the Pet Shop Boys. I believe this was their first Miami sound mix, so it was all new ground for Chris and Neil, and once we had the bass line and groove running under their song over dubs and Neil's vocal, we were very happy that the mix was going to go down well with everyone.
The Spanish female voice comes back in the middle breakdown. I'm not sure if we found that voice or whether it was already there on the tape. We then, rather strangely, got Ian to do a latin-style piano solo, as this had been a feature on quite few other Miami records. I think all of that combined with some of the thunderclaps and keyboards from the original record made for a classic mix. The breakdown under the last verse with a string arpeggio from Ian, which had featured througout the mix, is also very effective, as well as some more rhythmic vocal samples introduced after that to keep the groove fresh and bubbling along.
After the success of that mix during the late summer of 1987, Tom Watkins and the Pet Shop Boys asked us to co-produce the Patsy Kensit/Eight Wonder single 'I'm Not Scared' with them, starting on Monday 23rd November. Then a last minute regest came in to also do a remix of their forthcoming Christmas single, 'Always On My Mind' in a similar style to our Miami mix of 'It's A Sin'. We decided to squeeze it in, as Chris and Neil wanted to be present - and although we didn't like to work weekends, we felt it would run us nicely into the Eighth Wonder session.
So it was Saturday 21st November, and a part from us there was pretty much no-one else in the building, which was great because it meant we had the run of the place and there was a better chance that Chris and Neil would be instantly more comfortable. We were literally building the mix one overdub and one instrument at a time and apart from a few instruments that Ian and I had prepared before they came, Chris and Neil wanted to approve every single sound, every single pattern and its positioning in the arrangement. It was an interesting and creative process that made for a different and very enjoyable day. They were very against using any drum loops and quite determined to stick with their signature sound, but put into it the Miami mix/sound format. It was a testing day for Ian, having to run through a lot more choices of sounds until we hit one that got Chris and Neil to smile. It followed a very similar format and set of overdubs that I've described for 'It's A Sin', with the agogo percussion bells and the Miami style synth riff. Instead of breaking into the crazy piano solo though, the middle section breaks into a totally different set of beats and synth overdubs that really take you into an out-and-out Mel & Kim-style House mix. We rether cleverly broke into that section by creating the line 'You were always in my HOUSE', and on the word 'House', the whole beat and groove changed to a House mix. That then cleverly amalgamated back into a mixture of Miami and House to create a great crossbreed of a mix that to the best of my knowledge had not been done by anybody else at the time. In many ways, we were just having a laugh and puding the boundaries and I think at first, Chris and Neil thought Ian and I were a bit mad for suggesting it and were worried it may be considered a bit corny - but they agreed that it worked and were pleased to go with it. Overall, I think this mix worked even better than the first one, as somehow the style of overdubs suited the song much better.
In many ways, iťs a shame that I didn't do more with the Pet Shop Boys as the oportunity was there from the early days of co-producing 'ln The Night' with them, which led to my spending quite a bit of time editing the track 'Opportunities' with Neil at Abbey Road Studios. I've already written elsewhere in the book that PW and Tom Watkins didn't really see eye to eye after the failure of the 'Spelt Like This' project but to his credit, Tom did keep coming back to us at various times offering for SAW or Ian and me to do various things that were turned down by us - 'West End Girls', offered to SAW, turned down by PW - and Bros 'When Will I Be Famous' remix offered to me, turned down by Tilly and myself. Eventually, Ian and I would move solidly and completely into the Tom Watkins camp in the future, but by then the Pet Shop Boys had parted company with him ...