Where have you lived before?
I've lived in North Miami, Clearwater & St.Petersburg Florida

What got you started as a DJ?
(When I was on my way out of elementary school the breakdance culture started. I dreamt of being a DJ for a breakdance crew. I went through the whole breakdance crew thing and started taking intrest in the electronic music of that age. Coming out of middleschool I hooked up with an Mc Crew in Pompano and began spinning. From there it all started.

How long have you been a DJ? 
(I began collecting vinyl and spinning parties at the age of 15. At my current age this would make me on my way to my 19th year of Djing.

What type of equipment did you start with and what do you use now?
Oh man, I had a broke ass Gemini mixer and some belt driven Technique 800 turntables with dials as pitch controls. It didn’t take long to get my first pair of 1200’s and I’ve gone through every mixer you can think of. Currently I use what is supplied at the event I play. At the station we use a rane board, Dennon CDdeck, and 1200’s. I do prefer to play on Pioneer mixers, 1200s, and if CDs Pioneer or Dennon.

What's your favorite Genre to play?
Being a Miami Bass kid, I love Electro. I do produce lots of Electro tracks and Breakbeat so my sets are a combination of both. As long as its bass heavy and bangin, I'll drop it.

Where do you spin? (stations, clubs)
I do the X-Factory with my partner Dj Rose late nights Friday night and Saturday nights on Wild 98.7 FM in Tampa Florida. As far as clubs, I travel the US doing shows at various venues and clubs dropping the bass!

What is your role at the station?
Droppin that quad late night style!

What would you like your role to be in the future?
I am not currently trying to do anything else at the station as my role being an underground unformatted DJ really doesn’t go with the normal programming of a station. For me it s a way to get my music and the music I enjoy out to the masses without a programmer presetting what I do.

What are some of the craziest things that have happened to you while at the station? 
This question could get me in trouble so I’ll just say this. Its probably the kinda thing corporate would not approve of anywhere in the building.

Club?
Same thing but on a larger count. Hahahahahhahahah.

Any Career highlights you would like to share?  Someone you met, something you got to do for someone else.  Anything.
Getting booked in Puetorico to share the stage with DMC champ Craze was dope. Having Montel Jordan hang out with me in my booth back in 94 MCing for me as his manager brought us chicks and liquor was cool. Having breakfast with Jelly Bean Bonitez in South Beach at the WMC was fun. Also doing some big radio concerts in Orlando with the former 95.3 party was dope, ridding an elevator with Jarule at one and him sayin all he wanted to do was get some food and get rid of the headache hahahaha. I do this for fun so I won't go into who asked me to do a remix or what my favorite track I've done would be. Meeting cool people and seeing them in the raw is what is cool. You can spot an ego from a mile away and a lot of these superstars are really great people.

Who are some other DJ's that you feel are at the top of the game?  Who influences you?
Well in breakbeat DJ Icey is one that a lot of us Breaks/Bass guys look up to. He started out as an underground DJ making and playing his own stuff and now he tours the world with the biggest names, fills venues as the headliner, has major label remix and originals up the wazoo and always comes with a power packed set of breaks to make the house shake.

Do you have any Mix Tapes, CDs out?
I currently have 8 full length cd albums that have been released to date.

Give me your all time top 5.
1. Dj Scratch D - Throw Down
2. Exact - Burn Inside
3. Merlyn - Dominate
4. Malicious Mike - Pump It Up Ya’ll
5. Infiniti - Nuex
6. Dj Rose - Sunrise
7. Dj Scrub - Game Over
8. Dj Ruff - Baton Rouge Bass

Any groups in your area that you think need recognition?
The Funklab of Funklab Records needs to be more respected. They have been releasing bad ass undground breaks since 95 and have had tracks picked up by Sony playstation, Street Beat and a few others. They have one of the coolest live PA shows and always pull a crowd. I think that sice they don’t play the kiss ass game they are shunned from where they should be today.

Any advice to give to new DJs wanting to get into radio?
All I can say is that they should do what they can to get in contact with the powers that be. That can range from management, to street teamers to DJs. For myself, I was already a local club DJ and music producer to Tampa and since Rose had been buying releases of mine, we got in contact which then got me to know management in programming. When the station was looking for someone to be in my spot Rose asked me to be on board and there we have it.

Do you have your own website?
Yes, www.maliciousrecordings.com and www.thugwayrecords.com , the thugway site needs some major changes, but it will be done soon. The malicious site features what we are up to, our new products for sale as well as free mix downloads every month on the news page.

Are you willing to take on gigs outside your area? Can someone book you?
I take gigs outside of my area all the time, since 96. I would say my biggest draw is in the state of Louisiana which I visit every other month.

Why do you think radio stations sometimes go through Mixshow DJs like wild fire?
There could be a buch of reasons, reliability on that mixer to do what he is supposed to and be on time. Could be styles, conflicts, ego clashing. Ya never can tell. Personalities want to run the show, but the DJ spinning the records is used to being in control and sometimes that can be a big clash, you have to find a happy medium and let it flow for the people.

Do you think Mixshow DJs get enough recognition? If no, why and how could it be change?
I think it all depends. For instance, growing up in the Miami area, the music listeners really got a good array of mixshow DJs, guys like DJ Laz, Felix Sama, Phil Jones, just to name a few. Those guys to us were the superstars. The MC was just in the way. In that area, those type of clubs and that time, those DJs were able to capitalize big time at gigs making over 2k a night and more to spin at a club. I personally was in part of booking a couple so I saw the payouts. That was awesome. To see that today in Florida is not as much. At least not in Tampa. Someone such as Laz also took advantage of the exposure and was snatched up by Pandisc Records and became a huge bass producing DJ/MC with lots of local and reginal hit booty records. I would like to see stations do more of what that station did for Laz with some of us. Myself releasing records since 96 and touring the country I'm an easy sale, but since our main style of programming at our station is Hip Hop, there isn’t a push in sales to do such things for us on the EDM side of things.

Where do you see the state of Hip Hop and/or Dance is going in the next 5 years?
Hip Hop has been the leader in the mainstream for the last 5 years and I do see dance coming back up. I think dance has changed, there are still the cheesy aspects of dance that the majors still can't get over and pay too much attention to, but I think they will change as they did with Hip Hop. It was unthought of in the 80s to have the kind of things we see in Hip Hop today. So with that said and done I think that the big boys will have to start paying attention to the producers who get with the bangin underground styles. You can see it in TV commercials, reality TV background music and movies. It's just a matter of time and the people who continue to bang away at it should be given a chance. As far as Hip Hop goes it’s a culture that will continue to have success. I'm not a big fan of a lot of the Hip Hop today, I'm oldschool so for me it’s the classics that started the Hip Hop culture that I will always be a fan of. I'd like to see more of that come back around. Kool G Rap, Blacksheep, Tribe Called Quest, Pharcyde, those early 90’s hits will always be my favorites.

If you weren't mixing what would you be doing?
I would probably be doing construction on my dad’s company full time. I have used that outlet of hard labor to earn the money to press 90% of the vinyl and cds we have released to date so I would never knock it, I'd just rather not have to do it.

What keeps you in the game?
Hearing once and a while from someone that they love what we do and that it means the world to them. To hear that from a complete stranger about something that you do which you know dam well doesn’t mean a thing to the rest of the music business means everyting to me.

Are you in this for life?
No matter what I do in life I've put a lot of hard work, time, emotion and money into my labels and DJing so it will always be a part of my lifestyle, I'm in this for the passion of what I do, not the ego.

Any thoughts on Hip Hop getting involved in the political game?
I really don’t know how to answer that as im not really involved in Hip Hop.

How did you get your DJ name?
As well as DJing at a young age I was heavily into martial arts and bodybuilding. Going into a club to spin and watching assholes mess up the party used to piss me off. With that said and growing up the way I did I decided to approach a club manager in FT Lauderdale to bounce for him. Within a month I was security manager at the age of 19 of the upstairs part of the club and then would also do DJing on other nights or at other clubs and someone yelled out one night as a brawl was on hey look that’s that DJ malicious Mike guy. It kinda stuck with my friends and it was original as hell so there ya go.

Do you and Rose do any productions together?
Rose and I were roommates for a few years so it was impossible for me to work on music every night without Rose getting involved in some. There were days where he would come home from work and I'd be on my 4th track for the day. With that kind of speed moving through the studio Rose would come to the table with ideas for something I would be working on. Rose has a nack for making really bad ass basslines that groove and stick in your head. We have a few tracks out together as well as his originals and an alias group name of Spawn and Son.)

What made you guys work together?
I guess I should have read this before type the one above, hhahahahahaha.

Do you do remixes, and if so for who?
I've done remixes for a ton of breaks labels/producers. I’m not currently bound to any one label for remixing just as long as I can do what I do when I do it.

Any body you would like to work with?
I would love to be able to work with Sarah Mclachlan even though I'm not heavy on vocal tracks and if I had my pick for studio producers I would have to say Hybrid as they are the best in the game.

Anything else you would like to share?
Just that I would love to see some of today’s Rap/Hip Hop guys pay attention to some of us Bass guys. We can do wonders with some of those vocals and hooks to do a totally different take on the style and add to a release with a hard edge.

Thank you again for your time.  

Additional Info:
 
Real Name: Mike Frankow
Birthday: October 29th
Nationality: Italian/Irish
Hobbies and Interests: Making Bass-Martial Arts-Gym-English bulldogs-Golf
Favorite Food:  Italian
Favorite Movies:  Sopranos
Favorite Sports Team:  Bucs-LSU Tigers
Favorite Thing to Do: Make Music
Major Lifetime Achievement: Getting Married to a wonderful person who has changed my life for the best.
Major Peeves:  2 faced people and liers, they can all lick da bozak!
E-mail: mike@maliciousrecordings.com