Simon Pressey
Simon was born in 1961, in Dartford, UK. His enjoyment of singing (though, he says, “I didn’t have as much talent musically as I would have liked”) led him to want to do something in music, a path which eventually led to Canada. He emigrated from the UK in 1986, to work as an in-house engineer at Le Studio at Morin Heights.
Simon assisted on ‘Presto’ and ‘Roll The Bones’, and quickly became known for his careful handling of situations. “My nickname is ‘We’ as in ‘Royal’,” he says. “It came from Neil, laughing at part of my butlering diplomacy.” With an attitude like that and his solid engineering skills, he was asked to assist on numerous projects, hired freelance by Peter when he no longer worked at Morin Heights. He helped Michael Letho mix ‘Counterparts’, assisted on ‘Test For Echo’ and helped mix and edit the live album ‘Different Stages’.
He was also brought in for solo projects and others, including ‘My Favourite Headache’ and the Geddy-produced ‘Rocket Science’, as well as the Buddy Rich tribute albums and a number of other collaborations with Paul Northfield. Simon also worked with Mutt Lang and Shania Twain (one of the highlights of his career, he says, “for the confidence it gave me.”) as well as Celine Dion and A-Ha.
In January 2000, Simon moved to UbiSoft Montreal, to work on the music for video games. In 2003 he won the GameAudio Network Guild award for Audio Director/Producer of the year, and recently he was working on the music for the game ‘Myst 4’, along with Peter Gabriel. “I am very proud of it, it’s a real bar raiser for the ‘Myst’ series,” he says. “I haven’t worked with Rush for a while, but my secret ambition is to produce a Rush album.”