Mad Mike Banks

Artist: Mad Mike Banks
Alter Ego: Mike Banks
See also: Underground Resistance, Interstellar Fugitives, Model 500, Galaxy 2 Galaxy, X-102, and more…
Management & Booking: Alter Ego
Note: Currently working on several UR projects after successfully reuniting with label co-founder Jeff Mills for the X-102 project, as well as the upcoming new Model 500 releases.

Michael Anthony Banks, better known as “Mad” Mike Banks, is an American techno producer. He is the co-founder, along with Jeff Mills, of record label Underground Resistance and was a key player in the “second generation” of Detroit techno.

Banks lives in Detroit and is a former studio musician (bass/guitar), having played with Parliament / Funkadelic among others. He worked in the second half of the 1980s with the collective Members of the House, releasing several 12″ singles. Banks and Mills founded the label Underground Resistance in the late 1980s, and the pair, along with Robert Hood, produced most of the label’s early releases. After Hood and Mills’s departure from Underground Resistance, Banks headed the label himself, releasing material from acts such as Drexciya and Sean Deason in addition to his own productions.

He is also founder and owner of Submerge Distribution since 1992. Submerge, along with Underground Resistance, is an independent distributer Detroit-based techno worldwide.

Banks has hewn strictly to an ethic of the underground and doesn’t like to be photographed in public as part of this ethic. His releases often deal with elements of political and social commentary, which have made him a iconic figure in the electronic music scene.

Links:
Interview with Mad Mike about Underground Resistance in De:Bug Magazine