Mark "Flood" Ellis

Mark "Flood" Ellis is an innovative music producer who gives bands a signature sound with his creative techniques. It's because of his creativity that has gotten him to produce and engineer some of the more popular bands of the 80's, such as U2 and Depeche Mode. The meaning behind the pseudonym FLOOD. Two different stories with the same general concept. Flood would keep himself and everyone in the studio awake with his daily brewing of tea. Future Music Magazine '94 acclaimed that Flood was constantly spilling tea in the studio. What Flood was known for was his creative and innovative recording techniques. He perfected the ability to blend synthetic and organic elements. Depeche Mode's song "Personal Jesus" of their hit album "Violator" is a great example of Flood's use of blending organic elements. The song lacks resonance due to such great clarity, giving it that hard-edge sound. The album itself has a cold, almost impersonal feel to it. Flood recorded a few albums for U2 during the 80s even into the late 90s. The song "Still haven't found what I'm looking for" was a huge smash hit from the band, and Flood was fortunate enough to work with Brian Eno (who he was very inspired by) on engineering the album "The Joshua Tree". They wanted a "very open, ambient (sound) with a real sense of space of the environment that you are in". This was a weird request at the time of the recording.Flood had an almost flawless technique of recording. His albums would come out perfect and pristine. The sounds he created were mysterious yet it seemed to be everywhere at the same time. Flood was able to take what he did and the 80s and early 90s and transfer it over into the present age. One of his more recent successes was the album "This is War" by 30 Seconds To Mars. This album mimicked the sounds of previous bands he worked with, but with chants.

“Flood’s incredible. Flood is a tremendous producer. Flood is very masterful with the sonics, but where he really shines is he’s a great idea person. And I don’t mean like he tells you, “Oh, put this chorus here.” It’s more like he can see an ambiance of the song that you don’t necessarily see and he would really fight with us – not negative a fight, just he would really kind of push us to say there’s another vibe here that you can get to. And I think you can see that when he’s worked with U2 as well. He kind of pushed them to get to a little bit of a tougher vibe” - Billy Corgan

Great producers, such as Mark Ellis only come around once every so often. Since I personally never grew up listening to those post punk bands of the late 80s, I still have an appreciation for this type of music, and what goes into making a great record, such as The Joshua Tree. In the long run, I feel as though he has left an everlasting impression on me as an inspiring recording engineer.