Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac are playing Bedford Corn Exchange on February 8th. I had a chat with Scroobius Pip just before the tour got under way, and found him fighting to get fit for the first show….
How’s it going ?
Well, I’m on my seventh day in bed with a tonsil infection, so not great but…y’know I’ve got to get through it and get well before we start the tour so I can’t complain. I just have to rest up and get on with it. If this interview had been scheduled for last week it wouldn’t have happened. I’d assumed it was flu, or a thing like that, then after 4 days I rang the NHS helpline, just to say ‘look, what’s good for me to take ?’ and they said ‘You need to see a doctor within the next six hours. You’re really ill’. So, I thought I’ll get to the doctor. And the goddamn doctor flinched when she looked in my mouth. How rude is that ? So, my tonsils are obviously in a bad way. She actually recoiled. But I’ve got drugs now, so on the mend. I’m just tired of it, particularly pre-tour. I like to prepare for tours and be in a good space and it’s annoying me having to pretty much just sit in bed.
How did you get started ?
I played bass in various punk bands, and it was a necessity that turned into love rather than any other way. I live in a small town in Essex and I got sick of relying on the drummer’s mum to bring the drummer’s kit to practice and ‘we can’t do that gig ‘cos the guitarist has got his night shift’ and things like that, and I don’t like having excuses for failure, as dramatic as that sounds. I was into people like Sage Francis and Gil Scott Heron and Saul Williams and it struck me as something I could do off my own back, and if I succeeded it’s my own success and if I fail I’ve got no-one to blame. I can’t say ‘we would have made it if Barry was more into it’, or things like that. It was basically through necessity; I didn’t know any producers to make beats for me or anything like that.
What is it about you and Dan-le-Sac which is so successful ?
The key for me is that I’m a massive Dan-le-Sac fan. It’s as simple as that. I think he’s amazing at what he does, so it’s always easy to get excited and buzzed over stuff. He’ll send me a load of beats and I’ll be like ‘Yeah, it’s amazing. I can’t wait to write to this’. From quite early on we were respectful of each other’s strengths. I wouldn’t tell Dan how to do his job and he wouldn’t tell me how to do mine which allows us to keep our own styles and identities in there as well.
What are the main influences on the new album ?
It can be literally anything and everything. Film is one of the things that has always influenced me, and I think it’s one of the things that has made my writing style stand out a little bit from a lot of the rest of the UK scene, because I often tell stories in quite a filmic fashion and on this album in particular there’s tracks like Terminal, Porter, things like that, which are quite filmic and telling a visual story almost, so yeah, but then again it can be overhearing a turn of phrase and building from that. I’m writing constantly and making notes on my phone. So yeah, influence from absolutely everywhere.
I’ll draw on true emotions and true experiences, but a lot of the subject matter I write about would feel disgusting to have experienced, or witness someone close to me experience, and then just to put that onto a song and sell it on itunes and say ‘Thanks for that’. Y’know I write about suicide, I write about domestic violence, I write about serious subjects so, y’know, I find it better to write new stories and create a new narrative to have these subjects discussed. I will generally draw from real-life experiences and things like that. I often research. Equally there have been songs and subjects I’ve spent months researching to make sure I’m approaching it in the right way
What issues have pre-occupied you on the new album ?
It’s never a case of pre-occupied, it’s more interested. So there are always a lot of subjects and areas I find interesting and decide to write about. A lot of people point out that I write a lot of dark stuff, but it tends to be when we’re happy we do everything we can to remain in that place and when we’re sad, quite rightly we get out of that as quickly as possible, but that leaves the darker areas unexplored and I find that a lot more interesting to delve into and explore a bit.
You also perform Spoken word
Yeah, it’s where I started off. I cut it down for a long time and largely because of constantly touring with either Dan-le-sac or with my band and last year I did Edinburgh Fringe Festival and it was just great to getting back to spoken word. I did 19 shows in a row there and I was doing a lot to warm up for that and yeah, I still do as much as I can really. It’s just how I write. I write everything first as a spoken word piece. Whether it’s a gig or in my living room it all starts in that way and then develops.
Ever thought of publishing your lyrics ?
I’ve had a graphic novel of poetry out in 2010. I kept getting asked to write a book of poetry but there’s a huge difference between written poetry and spoken word and I’m very much a spoken word artist. I’m very much a fan of spoken word; I’ve not read that much written poetry so it would have felt incredibly arrogant to say ‘I don’t read much, but you should read mine’ so I decided to kind of find a creative way to get a version out there that would be interesting to me that is getting the elements of spoken word across in that visual way on paper. I got a load of different artists to work on illustrating a poem each and released a graphic novel called ‘A poetry in emotion.’
You have your own label. Do you only release your own material ?
No, I’ve released a couple of records by different artists in the past and two are coming out this year. A guy called B Dolan, a rapper from the US and a group who I’m really excited about called ‘Warren Peace’ who are a kind of a mixture of hardcore and hip hop and just all sorts of weird stuff. It’s two of them and it’s just like a guitar, laptop, some keys and drum machines. It’s exciting on that front because it’s their first ever record and they’ve not been heard before. Growing up listening to punk and hardcore and stuff like that, whenever there’s that exciting crossover melding of sounds it keeps my interest.
2013 highlights ?
Ooooh, that’s tough. Obviously our album (Repent Replenish Repeat) came out and did far better than we could have hoped and the reaction to all the videos. The first tour we did sold out in a day, and this tour we’re about to start; a lot of those shows had sold out in 2013. I also did my first ever run ahead of a fringe festival just doing spoken word and that was just absolutely amazing, I could have enjoyed that more. I loved it.
And 2014 ?
Obviously all the touring and the reaction to this new record has me so excited to get out there in front of people and just gig, gig, gig, gig. I imagine it will all be tour-based highlights.
Do you practice a lot ? It must be pretty intense before you tour.
It’s weird, because traditionally it’s not. Me and Dan, probably in our whole career, have met up and practiced 3 times at most. So, generally we know it because we gig so much. Obviously on this tour there will be new stuff and songs to learn but in general I’m planning on practicing a lot more on this tour anyway because although you know it, it’s always good to get tighter. Y’know, improve. And being ill has been really annoying in that respect; as I said I’ve got my club night and my film night and my radio show and I don’t generally put 8 days in my schedule to be in bed ill. It’s not something I’m used to at all.
Tickets available from Luscious Juice Bar and Pad Presents
