Spank Rock Interview

Spank Rock Interview

21 April, 2007 | 7.47AM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: Terry Church

“We just kinda hang out, drink beers, and see what happens,” explains Spank Rock’s Alex Epton before breaking into a nervous Beavis & Butthead-type laugh.

His relaxed, don’t-give-a-shit attitude sums up the studio ethic of this four-piece electro-breaks hip hop crew from Baltimore.

And like the group’s new mix CD ‘Fabriclive 33’ (out now) for London club Fabric, what Alex lacks in articulation and direction, he more than makes up for in charm and spontaneity.

“We found it pretty hard to do the CD because the maximum number of tracks we were allowed to use was 25,” he tells Beatportal.

“So we had to re-edit all of them, and cut like two or three minutes out of the middle of each track.

“We truncated them, yeah trun-ca-ted them,” he reiterates before falling into hysterical laughter again.

Beatportal feels like this interview is being conducted round the back of the bike sheds with a huge spliff – the smallest of things will set Alex off into an inexplicable giggle fit.

“You know I was driving a truck 18 months ago delivering art,” reveals Alex.

“I never dreamt we’d be doing music full time, and who knows?

“Maybe this will all go to shit, and I’ll be driving my truck again next week.”

So understandably, Alex and co. are for now just going with the flow dude, enjoying whatever success and free booze their music and DJ gigs brings them.

“The superstar DJ lifestyle sounds pretty cool, but to be honest I’m just happy making records,” says Alex, who on this occasion compiled and mixed the CD for Fabric.

Spank Rock take it in turns whenever the group need to produce a mix CD, and Alex is more into electro than the other band members so volunteered to do this one for Fabric.

For those of you that don’t know, Spank Rock are one of the most important acts to have emerged from America’s urban electronica scene of late.

By combining raw hip hop with electro-breaks, they have brought chaos to dancefloors, including Fabric’s very own main room.

Their seminal track ‘Bump’ was named best track of 2006 by London XFM DJ Lauren Laverne.

Just don’t, as some Brit journalists have, label Spank Rock as Baltimore bass.

Alex moans, “That’s bullshit, it’s like how everyone is calling the Klaxons ‘nu rave’, when they’re a fucking punk band!”

No doubt he’s unaware that the Klaxons actually coined the genre tag themselves as a joke just to see how many media outlets would jump on the bandwagon.

Spank Rock’s ‘Fabriclive 33’ mix CD itself has some punk sensibilities, as Alex describes: “I think it’s so much more interesting when you put your own sounds and effects on a mix CD,” he says.

“So we fed all the tracks into samplers and added some weird shit over the top.

“For instance, we mic-d up an amp, and recorded the sound of us throwing it around.

“It created this cool bomb-dropping noise.”

Alex also totally rearranged, re-edited, and screwed with each track on the mix for fun.

“Making music and DJing should be fun.

“If it isn’t fun, maybe you should think about doing something else,” slurs Alex, with yet another chuckle.

Spank Rock clearly don’t take themselves too seriously.

But you definitely should.

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