We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Tavini. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.
Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Weird Jungle is a creative mastering collective. It’s something that has never been done before in the music industry; a group of mastering engineers coming together with shared management, all with the same goal of giving bands and artists the very best experience when it comes to getting their music mastered. The thing that makes Weird Jungle different, is that the engineers and managers are spread throughout the UK, working from their own incredible studios, and getting involved in their local music scenes. What also makes Weird Jungle different, is that the women out number the men – we are the only mastering organization in the UK with more than one female mastering engineer! That doesn’t really sound like anything to brag about, but when there are only 5 women in the UK working as full-time mastering engineers, that’s quite impressive. We believe that all music is precious, and we hope that when working with a Weird Jungle engineer, music makers can feel how much we care about their art.
Katie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Katie Tavini, a mastering engineer based in Liverpool, UK. Bands and artists I’ve worked with include Rudimental, Bloc Party, Ash, We Are Scientists, Nadine Shah, Arlo Parks, Los Bitchos and many more.
Mastering was not a goal for me, but something I fell into via working as a studio engineer. I fell in love with the process of mastering; finish things has always been very satisfying, and that’s exactly what mastering is. My journey to working as a mastering engineer has been long, and I finally started working full time in 2020. However, mastering can be a lonely experience, and I knew that I needed to start working with other engineers who had a similar ethos, and so Brendon Harding and myself set up Weird Jungle.
Weird Jungle is now made up of myself, mastering engineers Stephen Kerrison and Izzy McPhee, and managers Carla Harding and Brendon Harding. I am very lucky to work with such a talented team, and very grateful that I get to work with some of my favourite people.
Mastering (in my opinion) is comprised of 3 parts – a quality check, audio processing, and creating formats for distribution. However, in reality it’s so much more than that. We are cheerleaders for music makers, their biggest fans, we aim to enhance the emotion in their art, and we want bands and artists to be 1000% confident when they’re releasing their new music. Every project we work on is special and we put our heart and soul into the mastering of every record. This isn’t just a job for us, it’s a way of life. And when I say this I can confidently speak for Stephen and Izzy too, because we all talk about how this is the case on a regular basis, and this is how I knew that these were the people I wanted to be part of a team with.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
Brendon Harding and I set up Weird Jungle shortly after he started managing me as a mastering engineer in 2020. We first met in 2015, when Brendon was head engineer & manager of Red Bull Studios in London – he hired me to do some freelance work, and we kept in touch. One day, out of the blue, Brendon called me and asked me to host an event that he was creating. Normal Not Novelty was to be monthly workshops for women in music – producers, DJs and engineers. “Would you host the engineering workshop each month?”, “Errrr, sure, I guess!”, I replied, feeling a bit sick about the thought of having to speak in front of a group of people, but knowing that if I turned down this opportunity I would regret it. Hosting this event was an incredible experience, and it opened me up to meeting so many incredible people who have inspired my career. So when I was needing to work with a manager, Brendon was the obvious choice – we had worked together for years, and I already knew what a brilliant human he is.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.katietavini.co.uk and www.weirdjungle.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weird_jungle/ and https://www.instagram.com/katietavini/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-tavini-22aa02bb/
- Twitter: @katietavini