Photo:
Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip are not your conventional pop stars by any stretch. One portly, mutton chopped and sparkly eyed; the other, runner bean thin and just as tall, armed with an orthodox Jewish beard and trucker cap. As a recent YouTube skit illustrates, they certainly wouldn’t win the ‘X-Factor’. One True Voice they ain’t.
May 12th sees the crescendo of their career thus far with the release of debut album ‘Angles’. Their act, a bastardized cut-and-shut of Le Sac’s electro shtick and Pip’s spoken word poetry has been engaging and exhilarating the UK for about half a tour when Gigwise is invited into the bowels of Koko, Camden to chew the fat and explore which direction this odd couple are heading in.
Both intimidatingly tall and articulate in equal measure, Scroobius Pip is clearly a man who should have no need for the props he employs. Suffice to say, there is already a very busy look going on there. On stage, a giant tome from which to spray forth his modern strain of commandments, a dog-eared periodic table and various hats and spectacles lend a humourous edge to their otherwise serious content.
To bear witness to an evening co-ordinated by Le Sac and Pip (and subsequently the forthcoming album) will have the attendee encounter tunes about suicide, chemistry, massage, Tommy Cooper, relationships and self harm all wrapped up in an off-kilter hip hop blanket.
“It reflects on you who you bring on tour,” says Pip. “We wanted all three acts to complement each other, and I think what you get is certainly an evening of alternative hip hop.” The selection of Gideon Conn, an act who is as far as you can get from the hip-hop cliché but raps all the same, Producers With Computers; middle-class grimers and Polar Bear; a devastating spoken word poet acting as compere, most certainly does that.
Touted as one of the most visible players thrusting the spoken word genre back into the spot light, Pip has great faith in the medium: “I think whatever eliteism that surrounded poetry has been smashed down in recent years...its not neccesarily an exclusively educated thing, its just performed by people who can articulate their feelings very well.” “Take Polar Bear”, says Le Sac “you could put him in front of a Millwall crowd as they are leaving a game and they would love him.”
Despite being utterly unique in so far as what is ripping up the airwaves on day time radio, there is part of you that wants to file them at least on the cusp of the hip-hop section, even though the genre has taken a bit of a pasting recently from the white middle aged press: “This idea of hip-hop being to blame for poor ticket sales at Glastonbury is completely ridiculous. It is absolutely stupid. It will sell out, of course it will – I think people have got wise and are waiting for the whole line up to be released before they spend all that money. I always thought it was mad when it would sell out after only a couple of bands had been announced anyway...saying that, not sure if we're going!”
Regardless of the fact they bruised the radio a few times last year with a clutch of single releases, most notably the incendiary ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’, the choice as regards what record label the forthcoming album would be released on has only just been made in the past couple of months; “We wanted to finish the record ourselves first and then let the album decide what label we should sign to, rather than letting the record label decide what the album should be like. ‘Sunday Best’ are big enough and small enough to do right if that makes sense?” Rather than use the whole gamut of services afforded to a band by a major label – design, production, intense marketing and so on – Le Sac and Pip have literally turned up with a finished piece of work (down to the artwork) just looking for a distributor and with no need to compromise in return for help. “Unlike most big labels ‘Sunday Best’ don’t have a UK hip-hop template they are trying to shove us into or shape us as…looks like they will be as clueless about what to do with us as we are! But in a good way…”
Undeniably one the key snags in releasing the LP was the elongated process of getting clearance from Radiohead to use ‘Planet Telex’ on their track ‘A Letter From God’. “Basically it took so long, not because they were being difficult but they were just really hard to get hold of…they were finishing their new album, and we thought they were ignoring us but it turns out they were busy re-defining the music industry!” Le Sac and Pip finally got an answer after XFM’s John Kennedy practically shoved the tune down the band’s throat after during an interview, prompting them to sit down and think about granting clearance. “Money wise, they’ve been fair” says Le Sac. “After speaking to publishers and hearing what they would ask for, considering a track of such magnitude, its not too bad…They could’ve had our souls if they wanted, I mean I was going to have a child just so that I could give them my first born! Thom thinks I’m ugly though, he’d rather have the money than my ugly children!” When it’s pointed out that the lack of a signature Thom Yorke 'lazy eye' might make the adopted children stick out; “true, maybe that’s what he likes about himself – MY LAZY EYE!”
Content with the fact that while ‘A Letter From God’ won’t bankrupt them it won’t make them any money either, the pair realise how lucky they are to be given license to use such a track. Dan Le Sac contemplates: “When you think about it, not many people have been given clearance to use a Radiohead track have they?, well no one that jumps straight out at you anyway...” Rhetorical question or not, Pip pipes up: “Mark Ronson jumps straight out at me…literally, he’s always hiding that boy – he’s a good hider! He’s slender.”
Le Sac and Mr Scroob are evidence of the new, self-sufficient breed of musician that is quickly battering the industry. Genres, it would seem, were created by labels and now with artists picking and choosing who to go with rather than going through the whoring process of fluttering their eyelids at labels to get signed, the power to ignore this segregation is stronger than ever.
Title track 'Angles' is one which you would imagine might have been subject to some major-label manipulation given half a chance. Hardly radio-friendly, the tune sees Pip narrating three sides of the same story, culminating in a devastating teenage wrist-slitting.
On seeing a gig by the pair last year and hearing the tune live for the first time, Gigwise was as stunned as the rest of the crowd when Pip delivered the knock out blow. After letting the room simmer for a few moments he summed up their whole act with the line “See, I lured you in with the funny glasses and then hit you with the teen suicide! Works every time.”
.jpg)
