How is the New Rules tour going and what’s different about it, compared to your other shows?
New Rules is similar to other shows in that it’s about me as well as being about the music. I really like to tell a bit of a story at the show and kind of take people on a little bit of a journey…The show itself is very personal and follows my journey as well as having lots of music that I love as well.
How do you feed off of the crowd’s interaction and energy during New Rules and whilst on tour?
A lot of the show is super interactive, I sample the audience shouting clapping and whooping, and build up songs made from the noises. I love the energy you get from a group of people all having fun and making music together.
What do you hope people learn or take away from your shows?
Hopefully they walk away with a smile! I always try and make the beatboxing and music parts really enjoyable, but I think what tends to stick in people’s memories are the stories.
How do you think all of the experiences, in the personal stories you tell – have informed you as a person?
Every person is a product of their experiences. Every childhood experience that you remember, the reason why you’re remembering it, is because it changed something about you, something happened to you that was important. So like all those little moments I can remember, like good or bad, have led into why I’m here doing this right now. I’ve been wanting to explore those and turn them into something creative, and turn them into a story or song or a show.
What’s it’s been like performing with the musicians that you admire?
Some of them I just couldn’t believe. One year I was backstage at Glastonbury and I saw Damon Albarn. I used to like Blur, but then Gorillaz, was the thing that I really connected. So I just went up to him and introduced myself and said, ‘Oh my name is Shlomo, I’m a beatboxer.’ “He said, ‘Oh yeah, I know about you, I’m about to go onstage and perform with The Specials.’” I was like I love the Specials, they were big part of my childhood growing up. “He said ‘We’re going to do this song A Message To You,’” – this happened to be one of my favourite songs of all time. “He said ‘Do you wanna come and beatbox on it?”’ I’m just like a kid in a sweet shop with these musical heroes. I’ve been very luck with these kinds of serendipity moments.” [Wow! -Ed]
You have a family at home, when it comes to touring and being on the road, what’s your work-life balance like?
That’s probably the biggest challenge. Before I was a dad, the biggest challenge was music; it was all I thought about. I was essentially obsessed with it. But then once you have a family, your priorities change. That’s been the greatest challenge of all just to try and be a good father, a good husband and also a good musician, that’s no mean feat. It’s a real juggling act, it takes a lot of discipline. As I’m getting better at it, I’m ending up happier. It’s actually making me happier all over, I used to be so obsessed with music, that nothing was ever good enough for me, so I’d have these huge moments in my career but I’d still walk away from feeling unfulfilled because I wanted bigger, I wanted more.
Has having a family fulfilled you to a certain extent?
It made me realise that there’s more to life than just playing on a bigger stage than you’d ever played before or breaking your own personal best. It’s just meant that I could let go of music a little bit and it’s meant that I can come back to music with a really refreshed perspective and a new energy. And also just learning to say no to things, I was completely terrified that If I ever missed any opportunity, I was terrified that my whole career would come crashing down. I’d never turn anything down. I’d just come back off tour and be off to another big tour, I’d be exhausted. I’d be like no I have to do that, I’d never say no. When you’ve got a family you have to. I started saying no to things, actually I wasn’t expecting it, but my situation improved man. If people wanted me to do something, they’d make me an offer that I had to accept, it meant that I was doing higher quality work and the people that didn’t really want me got filtered out – but why was I working with them in the first place.
It sounds like you’re in a place of having quite a lot of freedom. Your stories and the show seem quite fluid and cathartic.
The way I’m performing, is using live looping so I’m building the tracks up live every night. It means that every show is different, just because I’m doing it slightly different all time, because I’m recording everything live. It makes it really exciting! It’s a bit of a terrifying way to do it, because it means things could go wrong; you just have to learn to manage that. It also means you have to be super reactive to the room. For example, that show in Bedford the other day I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the crowd and how they were going to react to the music, especially when people are sitting down because a lot of it is very dance-y. I kind of love having that flexibility, to put some taster’s out to the crowd and then you build on that – it’s a really fun way to make a show. It is scary, and through like experience I’ve learnt how to manage that fear and how to channel that fear into making things more creative. Rather than letting that fear shut you down and make you just panic and do what you know is safe. Because actually fear is the best thing for creativity, if you’re not afraid, you’re not going to innovate – you’re just going to stick by what you know. Yeah, that fear is the best thing. If you’re ever not scared then you may as well just give up.
What aspect of your work do you find most rewarding and why?
Learning new things – if you are always treading safe ground you can get into a cycle of boredom, and that’s not going to make for exciting artistic output!
You seem to relish and enjoy working with and teaching young people, what do you gain from teaching young people?
I love working with young people. It’s really exciting to see how pure are creative ideas compared with other people’s, young people’s especially and how they translate what you’re teaching them into their own creative voice. Especially with beatboxing, I’ve met a lot of young people who have been told that they are no good, or that their creative voice isn’t valid – that they should just go away. So, it’s lovely to use beatboxing as a way to empower people to actually have some creative output. With beatboxing you can start making some quite convincing noises really quite quickly, like I can spend an hour with people and get them feeling really excited about this new way of being creative. So for a lot of the young people I work with, it’s the first time they feel they can express themselves without being pushed into a corner. It’s really inspiring! You come away from that feeling really, really excited and inspired to then go and do that yourself and push your own creative voice.
What projects have you got lined up?
I’m doing a new solo project to do with the technology that I use on-stage. I’m completely redesigning the way that works. I’m going to be unveiling that next summer, after a few months in the lab. So, write and record the new stuff and bring it out next summer. It’s lovely to be spending time in the studio. I’m pretty much done with the tour, I’ve been travelling and performing all summer; I’ve got today’s show and a couple of more shows then I’m done. I’m going back into lab mode, which is a real pleasure.
I can’t live without… houmous.
