Dan le Sac vs Scroobious Pip Interview, Leeds Union, 20/10/10, by Matthew Hardy
Pip: We stayed in Bristol last night, I think, yeah but it was Cardiff last night..
Matt: Was it good?
Pip: Yeah it was good, nice bunch..
Dan: ..Bloody welsh..
Pip: We've been to the venue that we played in last night, but we don’t have a clue when, or why..
Dan: we've been racking brains why...
Pip: It wasn’t on that tour, it wasn’t on any of our tours. For some reason we went for one show at that venue in Cardiff, I drove
Dan: ..and I was like are show, we were headlining..
Pip: wasn't just a freshers type thing..
Dan: We remember the dressing room... we remember everything
Pip: But we don’t know when or why, its a mystery, something happened that night that we've (in unison) blocked out.. We've killed someone..
Matt: It must have been something bad then
Pip: yeah, we’ve been out murdering..
Dan: Again..
Pip: we're going to have to cut that down
Matt: 'The Scroobious Pip' is a nonsense verse poem left unfinished by Edward Lear, does this imply that you defy genre or classification?
Pip: Yeah I mean that’s why I choose it I liked that poem because it was about that not, not necessarily consciously trying to defy classification or genre, but realising that its OK to not fit in one area or whatever. So
Dan: ...That’s like the first time that anyone’s ever actually just got it with out making you [pip] making you explain it.. Well done! Its a really irritating question What does your name mean? GOOGLE, it means google.
Pip: Yeah, its now that [the reason behind his name] that I’m the worlds fastest telling, cos i've got in the habit of.. (says actually incredibly fast!!) The Scroobious Pip' is a nonsense verse poem left unfinished by Edward Lear blah blahhh and then just streak through it, cos yeah, good work, that’s exactly it, I could have just asked that question.. yeah.. and it would have been a testament to your research! Thank you!
Matt: Cheers! .. Well do you think that you're living up to that?
Pip: uuughhh haha, ish, yeah that’ssss a tough one, were not conscouisly trying to fit in to one. The stuff that me and dad have done its not ever been a lets try not to make this song that genre, we've just made the songs that we make, it seems to sit there.
Matt: (to Dan) When you’re making the music, do you ever do it the opposite way round, and aim towards a specific style, to try it out?
Dan: That’s how I learn, whether that’s for something that we are actually going to release or not, I love learning how to make music by parroting what styles that I don’t understand. Like there was a track I was working on the other day that was just me trying to work out Flying Lotus' thought process, because it is kinda of bizarre in places. But yeah, you listen to it, you pick certain ideas from it and then you forget about that and then six months down the line, you’ll be writing and it’ll be indirectly influenced by what you worked out. When I started out as a kid it was just like getting house records and working out how to program a house beat.
Pip: yeah its a good way to do it, I remember early on when I heard Dan's stuff, I really liked was it didn’t just sound like any in particular anything else but it had bits in there, but, again its that thing where, I assume not setting out to make a Dubstep part of the beat, its learning how to make your own beat and then naturally we’ve learnt these things, if something fits it’ll be able to be exploited.
Matt: Do you think that's the approach that a lot of electronic artists take?
Dan: Well i'm not sure, but I suppose that’s what all musicians do, Our sound man plays the bass and he walks round the dressing room and he'll be playing Michael Jackson, and he'll play this, and he'll be like, this bit of slap bass is like Rage Against The Machine, its how all musicians develop. When you have traditional lessons, the first thing you get taught on the piano is 'Amazing Grace'. When ever you take part in music, you’re constantly taking certain styles in the education of it. But I do get the feeling when I sound happen, with Dubstep, well, commercial Dubstep, the 'Skream', when those noises first came through there were like hundreds of produce going, what did he do there?! Is that a band-passed filter? Or I don’t know... And spent the money, and then you get the sort of carbon-copied stuff, but it happens all the time.
Matt: Excellent, so when you are writing songs, is it a case of Dan makes a track and sends it Pip?
Dan: Any which way, so sometimes it'll be his lyrics
Pip: If you went through our tracks, it could be where I wrote a new lyrics, or Dan was writing something that happened to fit...
Dan: I think that’s the most common way, we'll be both working on something and then it just..
Pip: Gels together.
Dan: But then yeah.. The more memorable tracks we actually put the effort in. We think about it..
Pip: Yeah its planned..
Matt: (to Pip) how often do you say, I want a sound like this, can you sort of change this?
Pip: It varies, I mean if we've started to put something together with a track, and put a lyric with a track, then there will be a bit of back and forth between the both of us. I mean if, I there me saying, it will be good if it drops here or this bit here, or, Dan saying that vocal will sound far better if we change this or changed that, so, that’s when it becomes more of a working together. On the first record it was more that Dan would send me a beat and I'd write to that and that was it, because, again, I was new to it, and that was a conformable way to work for me, it was alight, I'd already have a vocal but id switch it, move it to fit it, and then, on the second record there was a bit more of, it would be good if we could change this here and change this there, and there was more back an forth, rather than it be me getting over excited “I like this beat! I've finished the song Dan! And then Dan would be like, “it was a demo beat I sent you...”
Dan: yeahh..
Pip: he'd have sent me a two and half minute idea for a track, and id be like, well that’s that finished, shall we do another one? Dan would be like “Nooo that was only meant to be a rough idea!”
Dan: Yeah I learnt not to give you any more demo’s after that, I give you fairly developed tracks now.
Pip: 'Back from Hell' was the prime example, id kind of had that vocal written in sorts in the past and never got to use it right, and Dan gave me a beat, and then just in that van I kind of just went over this vocal and went yep, that finished and that was meant to just be an idea.
Matt: That’s amazing! Is there going to be another album, are you writing?
Pip: not immediately, but there will be one further down the line, its weird how it all works, I dunno you kind of, a year after an album it kind of feels old like for the public, but we've not finished touring that record yet, so we've not really started working..
Dan: To a certain extent we've not even finished writing it..
Pip: yeah you're right, stuff developing live all the time.
Dan: yeah there’s so many bit where we're like if we just move that about because you start with having that audience they’re there without knowing it being like a focus group for you. Its obviously different in a gig environment, because there wanting to hear the tracks.
Pip: but this is our last tour of this record and like two nights ago, you [Dan] were changing something on 'Sick Tonight', a drum pattern, and I think that’s a good thing because otherwise you would spend too long just nursing a record, and its good to.. the way music is going, in the kind of disposable nature of it, its important to get it out there for starters, and then it the touring that kind of develops it, it could be kind of interesting to do it you know just tour it for a year and then record it. But then again I don think you’d get the same effect in that, you would get the right reactions to the songs if people are familiar with, so you need that slight familiarity with it..
Matt: I would be an exciting way of doing it though! I've seen you say that you are constantly writing 'bit and bobs', which maybe you never use them, is there ever a point when you both completely switch disengage?
Pip: yeah there are at times, I say, directly after finishing this record I couldn’t write at all, and was quite comfortable with that, cos it was just such that getting to the end of finishing a record is quite intense time, because you’ve got the demo version, and then you’re pulling them apart, and then Dan in particular having to spend hours on each drum pattern and everything like that and it can get quite taxing. Yeah its good to have that breather from it all.
Dan: (asking Rebecca) Do I ever completely disengage Rebecca?
Rebecca: yeah, I think you do.
Dan: I do, good. You never quite know.
Pip: and we've had different ones on the different records because after the first record I was writing again immediately, and had loads of stuff written and Dan..
Dan: I didn’t really have anything interesting..
Pip: yeah, and then with this record, Dan was almost as soon as it was finished [when we were finished with the first record] so yeah I just sat back a bit.
Matt: So what do you do when you're not being Scroobious Pip?
Pip: I just walk around and find new things for me to judge..and preach about
Dan: [laughs]
Pip: No, no, yeah is just enjoy, its weird things really I was thinking about this the other day, at the end of the festival season we had kind of two or three weeks before the tour was starting, and I went round and like I helped my mate decorate his house for a couple of days, and it was just nice to go back to, not go back to a normal life, but its just so, its generally just on the road, music related, and when i'm not working ill often be listening to music, its just nice to get that kind of step back into a normal world.
Dan: after the tour he gets three weeks off, after the tour [he meant festival] I go into the studio and rebuild everything for the tour... jammy little..
Pip: well I can start anything until Dan’s got his bit done, I just HAVE to sit and wait.
Matt: Well that leads me on, If you were 'Dan Le Sac vs Scroobious Pip' what would you be doing?
Pip: I'd still be working HMV I reckon
Dan: yeahh, ahh nah i'd already left. Awh yeah I would have sold my soul to Microsoft. I was doing some image communication design work, graphic communication. Not long before 'Thou Shalt' came out they had offered me a studpidly well paid job, like rediculous. And I didnt take it. Because I got some idea that I could write music forever. So yeah I did that, weve not earned combined, in this four years, my first years salary yet.
Matt: Well which ones more enjoyable?
Dan: Errm well the money... nah nah..[ish]
Matt: What would you like to be able to say about yourselves in the future, say 20 years?
Pip: Anyone that gets to do this for 20 years is really lucky, like stay in music, a lot of acts dont make it that long, but yeah you don't know, it might not be nice to be doing this if we're tour solidly for 20 years, that might be the nightmare scenario. I could look back at it and go, yeahh ive not been home in 20 years.
Dan: or not have a home..
Pip: yeahh but no, I would be nice to still be doing something that’s creative, and that you’re passionate about, and still excites you.
Dan: yeah it depends if you turn out to be Leonard Cohen, or Bono, they've both been doing it for a long time, but yeah Bono seems to have gone wrrrrong!
Matt: Well I went to see S-club 7 (minus 4) last night..
Pip: How were they?
Matt: Different, to say the least, what am I saying? They were awful!
Pip: Who was left?
Matt: Bradley, Jo, and 'likes a pie' Paul
Pip: is Jo the racist one?
Matt: yeah I think so..
Dan: the Blonde girl, from our neck of the woods
Pip: yeah, she used to come into the HMV I used to work in Essex
Dan: yeah she was Romford..
Matt: Well thank you very much, you've been brilliant, and I’m sure you'll have a good show tonight!
Pip: Yeah man cheers, nice to meet you. Leeds was joint favourite of the tour last year, i'm not sure which was best, Manchester or Leeds.
Matt: Well I think you do really.
