Friday, June 20, 2008

Interview with Simian Mobile Disco

So this has been an interview both you and I have been waiting on for quite some time! As their manager and label both know, like a 14 year old girl I've got Simian Mobile Disco and Black Ghosts posters right next to my bed (just in case you somehow didn't know, when Simian broke up one half went on to become SMD, and then their singer Simon Lord teamed up with Touche from The Wiseguys to create the Black Ghosts), so this was a big deal for me! Their smart ass nature shines right through in what was a fantastic interview... I really hope you enjoy reading it.

Wanna hear the crappy part?

I lost three minutes of audio somehow. Thankfully most of it was me gabbing! "Um, uh, I think uh"... but there we're some important bits that got clipped...

SO, I quickly transcribed the digital (f***ed up recording) as fast as I could while it was still in my memory. The digital recorder some how attacked my voice and Jas Shaw's while James Ford's was mostly unharmed. Sorry Jas. You'll probably never read this so it doesn't matter. Nor does it probably matter that on the playback I can't tell if you were saying "New York media" or what?!?!

Lesson Learned: Use analogue tape from now on!





INTERVIEW WITH SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO


Arcadia: This mix is drastically different from pretty much all your previous ones.

James Ford: Drastically?

Arcadia: Yeah, drastically! What influenced the track selection the most?

James Ford: To be honest it was kind of just stuff we were listening to at the moment. We wanted it to be stuff that we would actually play at Fabric, and maybe slip in some older weirder things that you wouldn't hear at Fabric but in a way that wouldn't break your stride, if you know what I mean.


Arcadia: It stuck me as flowing together really well. You had said in the past that Fabric is your favorite club to play at. Is there a particular club in America that sticks out as being what you would consider as a favorite?

James Ford: Probably Studio B in Brooklyn. Our friends Josh and Dave who we've done quite a lot of gigs with... (then a bunch of lost audio)


Arcadia:What was it like doing the SMD live show in America compared to your experience DJing America as SMD during your Simian days?

James Ford: I think we kind of really enjoyed some of (the shows) . We were just going to do a few, but then actually it went down really well, and we really enjoyed it, and we did a lot of touring really. So, we definitely plan to do more of the live thing. With DJing you get to go to a lot of different places, and get treated well, and people get you drunk so you can't complain!


Arcadia: James, I ran into you before your show in Chicago, and mentioned that Chicago audiences often don't dance at shows for thirty minutes or more. It has happened to Klaxons, Arctic Monkeys, really almost every band I've ever seen! Did you run into similar situations across the rest of the tour?

James Ford: Umm, I don't know. It was different in different places. I think, we kind of found, that generally we were pleasantly surprised by a lot of the shows out there really.


Arcadia: America seems to be pretty afraid of dancing on a whole. Do you guys care to speculate why dance music has never really caught on in the U.S.?

Jas: It's the media in New York (edit: I'm REALLY not sure if that is what he said. Does it make sense? Or should I have a competition to see if you can figure it out! Someone should win a prize if they can tell what the garbled audio says!) Isn't it in most clubs? At least that's what I was told...laughing...

James Ford: People go out and dance, but to a different sort of music. I don't know, I think now it seems like more European dance music is kinda making some inroads but I suppose there aren't the clubs or whatever. It's a really hard thing to answer.

Arcadia: Yeah, it is strange, I mean we've got Chicago house and Detroit techno...

Jas: Exactly! It all started in their clubs!

James Ford: I mean we came up with football and that's obviously caught on there (in America).

Jas: I'll tell you what's wrong...

James Ford: Oh, yeah, also San Francisco was really good! We had a really good time there...

Jas: All the places we went to there seems to be like small scenes going on but like maybe it just wasn't over ground and I don't see that as much of a problem really!

Arcadia: Yeah it was actually really nice knowing, when I saw you, normally I'd be surrounded by tons of people but there were, you know, 50 or 100 people in the bar that instead REALLY really wanted to be there...

James Ford: In America, a big thing is people wanna sit on their table and get a posh bottle of booze, or whatever, and sit and kind of look cool, you know what I mean? And that's definitely something you don't get in the UK and Europe.

Jas: What we need to do I think in order to fix this is just to flood America with pills.

Ford: Yeah drugs, we're going to bring loads of drugs to America!

Jas: Next time we come, yeah...

Arcadia: Yeah, bring backpacks full!

All laughing


Arcadia: Moving back to your music, your new remix album also has some kind of unexpected names on it. How did you choose the remixers? Are they friends or...

James Ford: Yeah, we just wanted to again go away form the obvious. We always try and make things different and it does work. We did that in Simian and it probably helped out success doing that. I think we basically wanted to make a remix album.. you know you got Chrome Hoof and people we like. There's an American band called Invisible Conga People... and there are other people we like like Joakim, and we've got Silver Apples on there who is a great hero of ours. We just thought it was more interesting than to just get the usual suspects there.

Arcadia: I really enjoyed the Pinch remix of 'I Believe'.

James Ford: Yeah, he comes from a totally different scene which unrelated to us, really, so we felt that it was really interesting... (more interesting lost audio)


Arcadia: Speaking of other artists, who are you guys enjoying most right now? What's getting played most on your personal stereos?

Jas: The Hercules and Love Affair stuff. That new DFA stuff. Yeah and they are touring over here at the moment.

James Ford: There's a new band called Telepath I like, and I think are an American band as well. There's a lot more indie music and rock music stuff going on at the moment and it's quite psychedelic and interesting; left field American music is doing well!

Jas: You know its crazy that American band come over to the UK and and everyone goes crazy for them, and they go back to the States....

James: It worked for Jimmy Hendrix...

Jas: ...they come over here and we get all excited about them...

Arcadia: Yeah, no one knows who the Gossip are in the U.S. but they blew up big time in the U.K....

Jas: Yeah, it's about the drugs!


Arcadia: Hey, I wanted to ask, are you guys at work on the new album? I know you aim to have it be spontaneous and not a routine, and this seems to be the first time you've had downtime in like 2 years...

James Ford: Yeah, we haven't had a lot of time what with dealing with the production and the live show and stuff. Time in the studio is precious to us, if you know what I mean, but that's the bit we enjoy doing the most really. In the last couple weeks we've made a start and we really enjoy it...


Arcadia: James, you've produced loads of albums in the last few years. By the way The Last Shadow Puppets album is fantastic! What's coming up next for you?

James Ford: The next SMD record is next on the cards, as well as the new Klaxons. (And this is the most important piece of audio that I lost... he said someone else important... but I haven't the faintest idea :()


Arcadia: Lastly, Mr. Shaw your baby doing?

Jas: He's old enough to be breaking stuff now, so yeah he's good!

Arcadia:Well, I'm sure that's all sorts of fun! Well hey guys, thanks for calling and you have a good rest of your day.

Both: You too! Cheers!

EDIT: Thank Simian Mobile Disco, their manager, and Fabric... I've got an EXCLUSIVE track from the forthcoming "Sample and Hold", the SMD remix album, which comes out July 28th! You guys know I love dubstep so I'm giving you the aforementioned Pinch remix. Enjoy! And please pick up both the Fabriclive and "Sample and Hold" albums when they are released :)

This will only be up for two weeks, so get it while the gettings good!

Simian Mobile Disco- "I Believe (Pinch's I Believe In Bassline Therapy Remix)

Here's the oldies for you guys :)

Simian Mobile Disco- "I Believe (Live)" zShare

Simian Mobile Disco- "It's The Beat (Live)" zShare

Simian Mobile Disco- "Sleep Deprivation (Live)" zShare

Here were the videos from the Chicago show I was speaking of...






If you want to catch them live you should still be able to... if you live across the world from me or have a huge bank account lol...

07-26 Stockholm, Sweden - Esque (DJ set)
07-30 Ibiza, Spain - Pacha (DJ set)
08-09 London, England - Field Day
08-10 Leicester, England - Summer Sundae
08-22 Leeds, England - Leeds Festival
08-23 Daresbury, England - Creamfields Festival
08-24 Reading, England - Reading Festival
10-31 Los Angeles, CA - HARD


Don't forget about this... coming out July 28th...

Sample and Hold:

01 Sleep Deprivation (Simon Baker Remix)
02 I Got This Down (Invisible Conga People Remix)
03 It's the Beat (Shit Robot Remix)
04 Hustler (Joakim Remix)
05 Tits & Acid (Oscillation Remix)
06 I Believe (Pinch's "I Believe in Bassline Therapy" Remix)
07 Hotdog (Cosmo Vitelli Remix)
08 Wooden (Danton Eeprom Remix)
09 Love (Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve Remix)
10 Scott (Silver Apples Remix)
11 Clock (Chrome Hoof Remix)


And last but not least the Fabriclive mix... that you can get your hands on in August!

Fabriclive 41 Tracklisting:

01 Tomita The Firebird "Infernal Dance Of King Kastechi (Clean Version)"
02 Sisters Of Transistors "The Don"
03 Simian Mobile Disco "Simple"
04 Hercules And Love Affair "Blind (Serge Santiago Version)"
05 Smith N Hack "Space Warrior"
06 Discodeine "Joystick"
07 Shit Robot "Chasm"
08 Perc & Fractal "Up Tool"
09 Metro Area "Miura"
10 Worthy "Crack EI"
11 Moon Dog "Suite Equestria"
12 Fine Cut Bodies "Huncut Hacuka"
13 Bentobox vs Chordian "Aemono"
14 Jelo & DeadMau5 "The Reward Is Cheese"
15 Simian Mobile Disco "Sleep Deprivation (Simon Baker Remix)"
16 Popof "The Chomper (LSD Version)"
17 Raymond Scott "Cindy Electronium"
18 Paul Woolford Presents Bobby Peru "Erotic Discourse"
19 Moebius Plank Neumeier "Pitch Control"
20 Plastikman "Spastik"
21 Green Velvet "Flash"
22 The Walker Brothers "Nite Flights (Album Version)"


This has been the greatest post of my life. I hope you enjoyed it! I'll be back soon with more aural pleasures for you all!


Download 25 FREE songs at eMusic.com!

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