Misquoted: w/ Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

Misquoted: w/ Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

[This is the other interview I got to do during the Monolith Music Fest. I was planning on uploading it after I finished the wrap ups, but I've not had any time to work on that recently, so I figured I'd just upload this thing now. I love how it started. You can't tell, but it was very cordial. Dan and Pip are awesome dudes, and I have a feeling I came off a little awkward, but that's kind of natural for me haha]

Pip: I’m Pip

Luke: I’m Luke

Dan: I’m Dan

L: Well it’s nice to meet you Dan and Pip. All right, well I really love you guy’s music, how’d you two get together? Well, first, do you mind if I record this?

P: yeah yeah, go ahead.

D: Nah, make him write it down, and let’s make up words

(laughing)

Pip: It’s weird, we grew up in the same town, but we didn’t really know each, and then we worked together in a record shop. That’s where we kindamet. But then we didn’t start working together musically until we were living on different sides, on opposite sides of London, kinda thing, and we’d just arena over myspace kinda thing, as typical as that kind of thing is these days…

L: Yeah. So I imagine you heard Dan’s DJ stuff and…
P: Yeah, well, I contacted Dan because he promoted nights and I was touring just promoting my solo album.

D: Yeah, it wasn’t on any musical credibility; it was on the fact that I could get him a gig.

(laughing)

P: Yeah, and it went from there. And when I played the gig, I done a remix of one of my solo tracks, and it just went from there.

L: Yeah. You’ve got a really interesting way of … rapping, essentially, and, sort of like, how did you develop that?

P: Basically it developed from a Lack of skill and development. I’ve had people comment on my unusual flow … it’s because I come from a spoken word background, so, when I write, it’s all about the words, it’s not particularly about how it flows or how it sounds, I’m more about the content. So the flow is just trying to fit the words in without, ah, running out of breath kinda thing.

L: Yeah yeah, I think too many people just try to rhyme stuff. Like Lil’ Wayne’s gonna try to rhyme one thing with another instead of, you know, actually…

P: Yeah. Yeah yeah, it’s weird,

D: …It’s just got more …

P: it’s been picked up more in America that it’s an unusual flow…

D: …Yeah…

P:… It’s just an amateurish flow and style.

D: I’d say it’s got more scope for change, as well.

P: Yeah

D: ‘Cause, you can move with the style, instead of someone like Lil’ Wayne, that’s gonna have a very similar flow.
P: But that’s the thing I do like about people like Lil’ Wayne, cause then, a lot of it will just be him flowing and doing different things, but then he will sling some actual content in, and it makes it all the more impact-ful, ya know what I mean? If all you’re doing is really heavy, deep, depressing stuff, if this other guy’s just rapping about nonsense, right, and then suddenly slings in some really serious political or something it like … whoa, this is good, that’s good, yeah, yeah.

L: And your *pointing at Dan* tracks are just awesome. They’re really peculiar, and, I remember, I initially got into you guys because I got into your *again, pointing at Dan* stuff.

D: yeah?

L: Yeah, it was the spoken word piece with “Cupid” talking over it?

D: Yeah yeah.

L: I, that, I, oh man.

P: Joshua

D: Yeah, Joshua’s good.

P: That’s an awesome piece as well. It really went perfectly over that beat, because that was when they were all instrumental beats, originally, wasn’t it?

D: Yeah. … I even sent that beat to Bob Dylan…

L: Yeah?

D: He never did respond. I’m quite offended too (chuckle).
L: How did you, sort of, come to be the DJ that you are?

D: Just, just because a kind of, um, … not being able to play with other people. I’m … really bad in bands. Like, I play guitar, but I was always just a little bit too “I know that it needs to be like this” and I’d have to settle for it sort of being half done. So in order to make everything myself meant that it could sound the way I wanted it to. And the good thing is I’m still … still learning … all the time. So, over the course of writing the album, there’s so much that changed and developed, and I hope, constantly, that every album has that … oddness and… yeah.

L: yeah, I especially saw that with the first single that came out of that, “Thou Shalt Always Kill,” that was, that … like the last half of that song is almost completely instrumental. That’s very peculiar for what is essentially a rap based song.

D: Yeah. There’s a couple that just go off on to a musical thing. It’s quite a nice thing to have as well, ‘cause when we’re playing countries that don’t speak English, it’s nice to have those instrumental bits, because people can latch on to that if they understand.

P: They can relax a bit, I mean, ‘cause even if they’re enjoying it and not understanding, they’re gonna be trying to pick up on occasional bits, just because that’s natural. If there’s someone talking, you’re naturally gonna …

L: …Yeah…

P: … Yeah, so it’s good when there is just the music, they can just stop trying to translate and just enjoy it.

L: Yeah, I remember seeing videos of you guys at, like house parties, and those people seem just be going crazy.

P: I mean, we did do a lot of small little gigs, just like, rooms above pubs, and stuff like that.

D: We kinda … yeah it’s weird, because we got booked for a lot early on, and got bigger before we done the smaller gigs… even playing earlier this year, there were just a few of those that were insane.

P: At one of those ones is one of my favorite of our Youtube clips because halfway through Thou Shalt, or no, the beginning of Thou Shalt … because it was weird, because it was a wrist band festival, but it was in the city, so there was a load of people outside, but without wrist bands you couldn’t come in and see us, and the stage was just by a big window. So we got up to Thou Shalt and I just, climbed out the window. So I finished the gig on the street, which meant inside everyone got up on stage and danced where Dan was. Everyone else just came outside and was in the street.

(laughing)

P: It made for a nice… Youtube clip. There’s a lot of video phone footage