Simian Mobile Disco interview

Simian Mobile Disco interview

13 April, 2007 | 12.29PM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: Terry Church

With their long-awaited debut album due out in the summer, Beatportal catches up with Jas from British acid-electro-rock duo Simian Mobile Disco to talk about how to annoy indie kids by playing minimal techno in their clubs.

Some people are saying you’re the new Chemical Brothers. Are you?
“When I was a student I went and saw the Chems quite a few times, they were my heroes.

“They bridged that whole live band experience and electronic music.

“Rock kids liked the Chemical Brothers and so did ravers. Because both James and I are from a band background, we record more like a band.”

You mean, you record stuff live?
“We always use old analogue machines and synths to record our tracks because they sound warmer than computer software.

“You get much more personality out of analogue. You never know what sound is going to come out.

“I don’t like how in dance music you can keep cleaning and cleaning a track until it’s perfect. It sounds boring.

“With Simian Mobile Disco, if we make mistakes we leave them in.

“We record a lot of stuff in one take. It makes tracks sound more human. Human ears are used to picking up imperfections, and I think it makes tracks sound less anodyne.”

Because your tracks are both rocky and electronic, indie kids like you too, don’t they?
“We DJ at rock clubs and techno clubs, and always try to play music that the audience won’t expect.

“At a party for UK rock mag NME we dropped Trentemøller straight after some boring rock band. We cleared the dancefloor.

“We had people come up and ask us to play the Stone Roses. But fuck pandering to the audience. We told ‘em to fuck off and go home.

“Actually, we’ve lost quite a few regular gigs because we’ve told people to piss off.

“The thing is, as DJs we understand the need to play for the crowd, but at the same time, why should we play stuff we don’t like?”

So what do you play in techno clubs?
“The biggest buzz I get from DJing is when you drop a track half-way through the set that would have bombed had you played it at the beginning.

“It’s like you got away with it, and tricked the audience. So we’d start with minimal stuff, but drop in a ghetto-tech track near the end.

“We played the tune from Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory at Bugged Out once, and it went down a treat.”

Is your new album which is due out 4th May dancefloor-orientated?
“It’s not as banging as some people will hope. I think it’s boring to listen to an album if it’s all six-minute dance mixes, so this is more song-based, and there are a few weird tracks on there too.

“There’s a whole tune without a single beat. It’s coming out on Wichita who are a really cool independent label.”

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