Vic Maile

Born in 1943, Vic Maile was a British record producer.

Career

After starting his career as sound engineer with Pye Mobile studios for The Animals on their album "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", Maile worked with some of the biggest names in the music business, such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Pirates, Motörhead, The Godfathers, The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Inmates,Dr. Feelgood, Girlschool and more.

Notable productions

Allegedly Maile was responsible for the 1970 Live at Leeds album by The Who although the production is credited to the band.

Maile produced the 1980 album "Ace of Spades" by Motörhead, followed by the chart-topping live "LP" "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith".

He also produced respected albums such as "Birth, School, Work, Death" and "More Songs About Love And Hate" by The Godfathers," "2-4-6-8 Motorway" by Tom Robinson and "Bikini Red" by The Screaming Blue Messiahs as well as other seminal albums by The Inmates andThe Vibrators, 999, Brinsley Schwarz and several more by Hawkwind. He also helped produce Guns N' Roses Japan-only album entitled "EP (Live from the Jungle)" having recorded the American rockers at The Marquee in London.

In Chris Coyne's (bass player of The Godfathers) words: "When we were looking for a producer we remembered "Dirty Love", the b-side of the "Ace of Spades" single. The sound was just incredible, so we rang up Vic expecting this Lemmy-like biker figure but he turned out to be a quiet, unassuming sort of bloke - a real diamond geezer."

Motörhead's Lemmy also said "Vic's strength was that he understood Rock 'n' Roll. He wasn't like a lot of producers who simply rely on the readings from the meters on the desk - he was instinctive and he had the same sense of humour as me. Basically he was a c**t!!."

Peter Gunn of The Inmates recalls that just before he died Vic phoned him to say that he had been listening to his productions and concluded that "Shot in the Dark" by The Inmates was his best work. "Vic kept his illness a secret so the true significance of this remark was only realised after his sad and untimely death - he is very much missed as a friend and a great producer"

Vic Maile died at 45 of cancer on July 1989