Interview: Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip

Written by: Hugh Platt

July 29, 2008 · Filed Under Features, Interviews · Comment 

While we’re sitting down at one of the many tables in the guest area, Music Towers’ interview with Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip keeps getting interrupted by a seeming never-ending stream of small children asking Scroobius Pip to pose for photos. Perhaps it is his – and I speak as a connoisseur of facial grooming – magnificent beard that makes him so easy to spot.

“The beard is seeming to make a comeback,” Scroobius looks up from the pad he is scrawling on for the little girl asking for an autograph. “It’s got to be done. I feel the greatest facial hair tragedy is Hitler. No-one can wear that moustache now. I don’t know if anyone did beforehand, but you don’t see that about now at all. He’s ruined that for all facial-hair people now.” But oddly enough, Stalin’s beard is still acceptable, and he killed just as many people.

The duo have relaxing after bringing their unique marriage of Scroobius Pip’s spoken word delivery and Dan Le Sac’s laptop-based production to the Dance stage, and blowing the roof off with their tactical musical nuclear strike on pseuds and idiots, ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’. It’s a towering monster of track that could’ve over-shadowed a lesser act.

“I hate it when bands get too precious over songs. We get a good reaction from it, which is really pleasing, so I’m perfectly happy to keep a banging tune in there.” Scroobius reflect. “We like to get some variation in there, and if it does become a continuing thing, it’s one that we can easily change and update. It could develop with us quite comfortably.”

“We’re quite lucky that the reaction for the next single has been so good. In a less novelty way, in a more serious way.” adds Dan Le Sac. “It’s nice that we can have ‘Thou Shalt…’ there as this calling card, but it’s backed up by other things. When we released it as a download we made sure people could also download ‘Angles’, which is as far from ‘Thou Shalt…’ as you can get. It’s about a kid killing himself.”

‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’, for those of you who have somehow not managed to hear it, is a series of new commandments for the modern music fan. Most of them are self-explanatory (Thou Shall Not Read NME, Thou Shall Not Buy Nestle Products), but there was always one that confused us: “Thou shall spell the word phoenix P-H-E-O-N-I-X, not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you”.

“I’ve had sleepless nights over it – it annoys me. I genuinely have. The English language likes to bastardise Latin and most other languages, which is cool, but if we’re gonna change stuff a bit, let’s change it to how it sounds when we spell it and say it? Why spell it foe-ee-nix? Or say it as foe-ee-nix, don’t say fee-nix, say foe-ee-nix.”

“Why isn’t it F-E-N-I-X?” Dan Le Sac interrupts.

“Because that would be Fenn-ix. I like to spell things how I want to. ‘The Scroobious Pip’, the poem, is spelt different from how I spell it. [Edward Lear] spells it I-O-U-S, I spell it I-U-S. I’m a bit of a stickler for spelling things how I want. Development of language, I call it.”

So are there any other words that annoy Scroobius? “I’ve been so focused on phoenix for so long, it’s hard to think of any others. I want to get that one sorted out first, and then we’ll move on.”

.

During their performance earlier, the band mentioned they had just been booked to support hip-hop legend, Rakim. “We’re doing a gig with Rakim! That’s what it’s all about, really. Getting to do stuff like that.” There’s a sense of excitement churning around inside Scroobius, which manifests through a grin that shines out of his beard like pearls stuck in seaweed.

“In Dublin, of all places. Second time we’re going to Dublin and we’re supporting Rakim . Ages and ages and ages ago, we did an interview for a magazine out there called Foggy Notions, and they do promotions as well. They booked us for Electric Picnic, next weekend. It’s probably the biggest festival in Ireland; Bjork’s playing, we’re playing – it’s that sort of scale” Dan’s cheeky laugh sums up his persona perfectly – ever so slightly amazed to be where he is, but in no way being awed or taking it too serious. And in addition to Rakim, the pair are lined up to support Gogol Bordello in London come November.

“Once our headlining tour is over, we’re then just really concentrating on the album, so we’re only taking good support slots for a bit so we don’t gig as much for a while.” Yes, the album, we were getting round to that.

“The problem we have at the moment is we keep writing and then it gets better,” Dan sighs. “ We’ve got three in the pipeline that are stronger than things that would’ve gone on the album. We’re going to stop writing in the next month or so because if we keep on like this we’ll never release it. You only get to release your first album once, so it’s gotta be good. You can’t let people down and release your cack.” So have they cleared the Dizzee Rascal sample for ‘Fixed’, their UK-Hip hop-baiting track of contempt?

“He didn’t clear the Billy Squires track that he sampled so I dunno why we should. But it’s one of those tracks that we’ll clear what we need to clear if we decide to put it on the album. We’ve got quite a lot of bangers stashed away,” he says, tapping his nose conspiratorially.

“I’ve always seen it as a possible as a live b-side. We might sling it out as a free download and not have it on the album,” Scroobius shrugs. “It goes down well at the moment – and it’s not having a go at Dizzee Rascal, as we try to make clear as often as possible.” He makes a big show of banging the table with his palm to emphasise this point.

“When I walked passed him yesterday he didn’t hit me, which is a good sign.”

Moving away from whether or not they’re marked for death by Rascal, why did the pair settle on their unusual stage names?

“It’s taken from an Edward Lear poem, called “The Scroobious Pip”. It’s about a little creature that wakes up in the jungle and doesn’t know what it is, and it goes with the lions for a bit, but it’s not a lion, so it goes with the insects, and so on and so forth. And in the end it decides it doesn’t have to go into any of those categories, it can just be The Scroobious Pip. So that’s where I nicked that from. It’s not just a silly name. Obviously, it is a silly name, but not just a silly name,” he says as he switches his attention from the tape recorder to his musical partner in crime. “And yours [indicating Dan], is about testicles, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Basically. I’m Dan The Bag. That’s my name. There’s not really an explanation to be had.” That’s a good enough reason in Music Towers’ book. “If I was in France and actually in a bag, I‘d be Dan Dans Le Sac, which isn’t bad either.”

The way the pair bounce off each other, interrupt the other in the middle of speaking, and generally correct, contradict and tease each other, they must’ve been finishing each others sentences for years.

“We’d known each other donkey’s years, lived in the same town, worked in the same shops, that sort of thing. It weren’t until June last year, when I did a couple of remixes from [Scroobius Pip’s] solo album, and then it seemed to be working. People seemed to be receptive of what I was doing to what he was doing, so we just wrote together and it seems to have exploded. It’s popped, really.”

“It’s been an amazing reaction,” Scroobius takes over. “It’s shedding more light on an already hugely popular and very strong spoken word scene in the UK, so it’s good that it’s having that effect. It was surprising, but a very welcome surprise. It proves there are more people listening.”

“A lot of festivals this year have done spoken word tents and it’s been great.” As soon as he’s said it, the name that simultaneously pops onto everyone present’s lips is Latitude.

“Awesome. I spent the whole time in the poetry tent. Polar Bear and David J, and a few others just blew me away – absolutely amazing.”

Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac aren’t the only act incorporating spoken-word into their work. Reverend & The Makers, playing on the Carling stage, incorporated spoken word pieces between their songs, and have done loads of stuff with John Cooper Clarke as well.

“Eddie Temple-Morris [XFM’s minmaster extraordinaire] has said that the two best lyricists in music today are Scroobius Pip and [John McClure] of Reverend and The Makers. I tried to see him on Friday at Reading but they’d swapped slots with Cajun Dance Party – fucking had to sit through Cajun Dance Party [shaking his head in disgust] – no, no, it was alright, it was…pleasant.”

The expression on Dan Le Sac’s face tells us that the Cajun Dance Party experience was actually anything but pleasant.

And so to the WigDogs: like every other act Music Towers has interviewed this weekend, can they describe them in ten words or less? Apparently not, as Scroobius Pip, man of words, seems unable to do anything except stare at the picture with wide-eyes and giggle.

“I am literally speechless. That’s amazing. It’s the future of canine fashion.”

The pair are giggling and smiling, clearly pleased as punch that everything is going so swell. They’ve achieved what so few people thought they’d be able to do, and escape being just a one-hit wonder with the mantra-manifesto of ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’. With new single, ‘The Beat That My Heart Skipped’ getting warmly received by everywhere they play,

But we’ve got last question, after the tour, after all that, after everything’s been said and done – give people one more commandment in the ‘Thou Shalt…’ manner, what would it be?

“Thou shalt…buy our album. If that’s all said and done, and that’s all we’re ever gonna do, let’s do it, let’s make some money!”

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Interview: Rosie & The Goldbug - the dark side of pop music

Written by: Hugh Platt

July 27, 2008 · Filed Under Features, Interviews · Comment 

“Back then we were very piano-orientated. We’re now more bass-and-drum-orientated,” says Rosie Vanier, she of the band’s name. She’s talking about when Music Towers first encountered her band, when they were the only real shining star at a lamentable corporate battle of the bands-type affair, where Music Towers described their performance as “vaudeville brand of gothic ephemera as a more than welcome change from the indie-boys-with-haircuts-and-guitars”.

“It’s a lot more focused around Pixie and Plums being in the band, with the piano riffs floating on top,” Rosie explains. “I was very restricted with the piano and it was a little bit boring - we realised we had to make an adjustment with the instrumentation. It’s a lot more ballsy and feisty, before it was quite melodic, and we were going for that really epic sound, whereas now it’s all about vibe and having a good time.”

Completed by drummer Sarah ‘Plums’ Morgan and Lee ‘Pixie’ Matthews, Rosie & The Goldbug formed in Cornwall, and along with pasties and Straw Dogs, they’re set to be the next thing to come out of the toecap of Britain that will get people talking. “ Cornwall is a beautiful place and there’s a lot of music going on down here, but it’s very different to London. London you can hop on the bus all the time, whereas down here you’ve got a little bit more time to explore and create your own thing and anything can happen. There’s a lot to be inspired by.

“It’s hard to say it without sounding derogatory, but I guess its sometimes a little bit ‘behind the times’ here,” Vanier mulls. “You make up whatever you want instead going with what’s ‘hot’. There’s a lot more freedom and a lot less restrictions.”

The promo video for ‘War Of The Roses (Because You Said So)’:

That experience has led to a series of songs that range from the dark-disco stomp of ’Heartbreak’ through to fragile ‘Springtime Dreaming’. If Katie Jane Garside stopped chasing garden sprites to front Dragonette for a night, then it could’ve resulted in the ‘War Of The Roses EP. But this hasn’t meant they haven’t taken a cosmopolitan approach to songwriters.

“My instant reaction was to think ‘oh no, I don’t want to write with anyone’ because I was really precious about my song-writing,” Rosie sighs. “Then I thought \this is ridiculous – I’ve got the opportunity to work with some people I really admire’.” And it’s true – the list of people who’ve come on board to help pen songs is admirable indeed. “Before I knew it, I was writing with Marcella Detroit – I was an absolute Shakespeare’s Sister fan when I was younger, so that was a bit of a dream come true, writing with her. Jim [Eliot]from Kish Mauve [writer of ‘2 Hearts’ – Kylie Minogue’s top 5 hit] – he’s a bit of a wizard. I wrote with Pär Wiksten as well, from The Wannadies, which was a great experience.”

As well as playing a host of festivals over the summer (culminating with an appearance on the BBC Introducing stage at Bestival), the band have a London residency of sorts lined up. While glossy chart-botherers like Duffy might prefer the Piccadilly gloss of the Pigalle for such things, Rosie and The Goldbug have gone for the 12 Bar Club in Soho – it’s a “unique” venue, that’s for sure…

Rosie laughs at the description. Music Towers strongest memories of the 12 Bar involve cheering along a fight in the alleyway behind the venue after a misguided whiskey-drinking competition that ran into the wee hours. “The 12 Bar has really inspired us – because it is really smelly and rancid in there. We were changing in the toilets for a gig there once and we were thinking ‘for fuck’s sake; it can’t get any worse than this’ as it basically stank of shit.

The promo video for ‘Feeling’:

“We thought it was a perfect concept for our album – this is what we’ve experienced for the last year - an absolute weird experience of going from revolting venues to being in flash record company offices.

“As the 12 Bar is important to us, and we thought it would be a good place to do a residency and show what we’ve got. Not many people know us yet, and we’re willing to start wherever to get people to know who we are. The 12 Bar represents everything – it’s such a cranky little venue with such a tiny stage and I love performing in strange spaces. There’s lots of beams to climb over. It’s very unique.”

That sounds a lot like fightin’ talk. Rosie & The Goldbug don’t have anything to prove, but Vanier sure sounds like she’s got gusto. “I don’t like that Marmite thing. The whole ‘you either hate it or you don’t’ thing confuses me because maybe sometimes you like it a little bit, and then sometimes not. It’s not as simple as black and white.”

‘War Of The Roses (Because You Said So)’ by Rosie And The Goldbug is out now on Lover Records. The band is midway through their residency at the 12 Bar Club – click here for more details.

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