Alrighty music lovers? Here is the first of the Digitonic interviews that we did with the Elektrons just after their set at Electric Picnic. Definitely one of my favourite interviews of the weekend, although every last one of our guests was a real delight. Great banter between the lads and some really interesting thoughts on where dance music and clubbing in general are headed. Enjoy!

JS: Well I have to say I was blown away by that. The live show really brings the album to life

LU: Are you sure?!

JS: Totally I really enjoyed it, with the big sound system it sounded so dynamic and as for Pete Simpson – what a set of lungs! Where did you find him?

LU: Good question! Pete’s from my native, well kind of native town, Sheffield. We’ve known Pete for a while really just cos he’s been doing some stuff on the underground UK labels for the last ten years or so. I knew him from Sheffield and me and Justin started going out as Unabombers with Pete singing as the Electric Soul Sound System. So we just sort of very slowly stepped it up and started doing a bit of live stuff really.

JU: Well we played together last year. We did the Bacardi Live tent last year here.

JS: That was as Unabombers?

JU: Yeah, well we did the Unabombers present the Electric Soul Sound System, but the Elecktrons obviously is a totally new ball game.

JS: So is that what you’re going to focus on for the next while and let other things take a step back?

LU: Yeah I think so.

JU: Well, we’ve got to establish it is a live act because it started off as a studio project and we’ve got to transform it as a live act so I’m glad you liked it.

JS: Well I reckon it’s definitely working as a live act!

JU: We need to get more and more shows under our belt before we can really let loose and there’s other tracks to incorporate and a couple of other vocalists as well. So we’ve done a round of festivals this year, this being the last one and then we’ll be back on the road in December.

JS: So what has the reaction been elsewhere, how has the show been going down this summer for you?

LU: Well, as you know it’s been a muddy wet summer!

JU: The muddier the better, it’s an inverse relationship!

LU: (To Justin) What are you on about, an inverse relationship. Oh this is after dark stuff this!! An inverse relationship! Dialectics! No it’s been good actually because there was no real plan of action when we started out fifteen years ago when we started doing Electric Chair and the Unabombers. The thing for us was just to let it slowly evolve. So we started doing compilations from the club and ten years in we just wanted to do something a bit more dynamic and live. So the response was really good initially when we went out with Pete, cos he’s such an amazing vocalist. This is something we’ve been nurturing for a long time and right across the board the whole album is something that was road tested in the underground basements of Old Britannia, Ireland, Europe, all over really. So it’s now sort of coming out of the basements into the sunshine and spreading the word.

JU: Our ideal would be to combine it with a DJ set, but at this stage with the album just out we’re just getting short slots at festivals we don’t have enough time to do a two hour thing where we DJ, turn to the band, back into the DJing and maybe do some overlapping as well. We’ve really been dropped in the deep end though. We’ve done Glastonbury, V, Isle of Wight - they were all our first gigs.

JS: Sink or swim situation!

LU: A bit of both! No the feedback has been good, and you know myself and Justin we didn’t set out to have a perfect model, we want to evolve so each time we’re adding new dynamics .

JU: The thing is the album’s only just out so it was interesting to see today, you could tell people in the audience knew the tracks whereas when we started the shows it was completely new music, nothing had been released so it’s great to see people getting to know the music. And we’re surrounded by talented musicians as well. We make sure we get talented people.

JS: Let’s go back a little bit. Electric Chair has been one of the most successful and long running club nights in the UK and I heard a horrible rumour that it’s coming to an end!

JU: It’s not a horrible rumour. It is true but it’s a good thing.

LU: It’s the truth, it is DEAD! Well not dead yet but it is gonna die. Me and Justin are a bit worried in the sense that it’s a big risk to take but we’re also dead excited by the fact that after nearly thirteen years unless you change and move forward, you stand still and become insipid. Oooh that’s a big word! But we feel that the moment you get velvet handcuffs – i.e it’s very comfortable and you’re making an income from it.

JU: Velvet handcuffs??!

LU: It’s my phrase leave it alone. Anyway when you get comfortable with something and with the income it holds you back, you’re not inspired to change and do new things so we’ve decided in January that’s it, we’re gonna move on and do other things, so hopefully we’ll have a sort of Peter Kay Phoenix Nights out of the ashes moment and something else will happen! We’ve always had a great slogan at the club which is “bomb the past” we believe in moving forward.

JS: Just to talk about the past then very briefly! Can you remember what the craziest night in the last thirteen years was? That’s a big ask I know!

LU: That night in 1973 with David Bowie back in the day – MASSIVE.

JU: There’s an awful lot to pick out! But….

LU: I would say for me personally

JU: That’s alright you interrupt me

LU: Yeah it’s called working together

(Ed: Fret not this is all very good humoured – no domestics looming!)

LU: For me it was when we were a lot younger, so this would be I don’t know ’98 it was when FK - Francois Kevorkian first played in the club, he was a massive hero for both of us and it was the first time we’d had the opportunity to bring over some of the big hitters in America, not in terms of the corporate sort of Mafiosi world of DJing but DJs we loved and were inspired by and he came to the club, played a brilliant set of four or five hours and then, it wasn’t actually a crazy thing, more an inspirational thing…normally with lot of the American DJs they can be quite…you know..

JU: They’re professional, they do the job and they go.

LU: They’re in and out, but he stayed around and we ended up going to a (laughs) lesbian afterhouse, long story and he DJed in this really bizarre pal of mines bedroom. They kept calling him Francois Kavakararian and he just played at this little party for a hundred people and it was just a really nice moment cos it gave you the sense that he still had the spirit and the passion.

LU: What’s nice about that is that it showed how much he enjoyed the whole experience, enjoyed the club and the people.

JS: A lot of the guests that you’ve had over the years have commented on the atmosphere in the club.

At this point Pete Simpson (vocalist) pops his head around the door.

LU: Pete come on. Oi!! Come ‘ere

JU: There’s a bit of false shyness going on here.

They drag him over for a great big family moment! It’s beautiful…

LU: This is Pete Simpson

PS: Can I have your autograph please?!

LU: Shut it! This is Pete Simpson. I call him the British Marvin Gaye.

JS: Well that is some vocal you’ve got. Hair on the back of the neck stuff mate!

LU: Yeah and look at him he’s lost weight and he’s looking good. Both me and him are on this pomegranate, organic tofu diet.

JS: So Pete how has the Elektrons experience been for you?

PS: It’s been amazing.

LU: Toe the party line here now Pete.

PS: It’s been absolutely fantastic.

JU: Good lad!

LU: He loves us, you love us don’t you Pete?

PS: I love them so much with all my heart! No, it’s been amazing actually, we’ve had a really phenomenal response everywhere we’ve gone and done this and I think obviously with Justin and Luke’s reputation as DJs I think they’ve surprised a lot of audiences in that they’ve come out and done something very different.

JS: Well there were certainly a few Unabombers fans in the tent who were really impressed with what they saw today. Hopefully next time we’ll see you at a later slot. Let’s talk briefly about the clubbing scene in Manchester at the moment. Is it in a healthy state so to speak?

LU: Well me and Justin have been in Manchester for twenty one years and twenty years.

JU: You don’t need to give people these details!

LU: It’s called reference, you build the foundations first! So you just sit there and keep yourself calm. So like anywhere, Dublin Cork, things go through cycles and ups and downs, so Manchester has always been solid, at times things are more vibrant than at other times but at the moment it’s kind of ……

JU: I’ll tell you what I thinks going on..

LU: Ooooohh interrupting now!

JU: Well you interrupted me! I think people are just stalling on clubbing a little bit, generally I think wherever we go we feel like we need a new energy in the clubs at the moment. I think a lot of clubs that have been going for a long time are finding it a little bit difficult. People are finding a new sound and new things. The smaller clubs are doing really interesting things. I think that the big club thing is in a dip at the moment but then again in Manchester there was never really a big club scene anyway. It’s always been about the little clubs in basements and parties so in that respect it’s healthy.

LU: And I think it’s going back to that, as Justin said, Manchester never had a Superclub. The Hacienda lost money, and that was the biggest club we ever had. There’s always been a real eclecticism in Manchester where the underground thing was always rooted in basements and cellars and grotty little dives so things are going back to that and they’ve levelled out, people who wanted to make money in clubs ten fifteen years ago, the big brands like Cream and Ministry of Sound, they’re pulling away from that now so what’s left now are people who do it cos they love it. If you’re there to make the dollar you’re not really gonna bother because ultimately that’s gone. So in a way it’s good cos the proper people are left and now it’s just a matter of readjusting. Things are healthy but you’ve just got to seek and find. I mean in 1985 there was two hundred people dancing to underground music and then suddenly you’ve got 20,000 by the year 2000 so we really want to go back to the roots of it and at the same time with Elektrons spread the word further with the live thing. I also think that the word dance music has become a dirty word because people see it as this big Radio 1 Road Show with the same music, the same beat, the same tempo. So some people have gone towards rock music and all the rest of it. There’s always a thirst for good music so for us things have changed but it’s an exciting thing and just a different way of doing things!

(Did you get all that?)

JS: One review of your album I read described it as the middle ground between early Massive Attack and Basement Jaxx, how do you guys feel about that?

JU: Well I think what you can say about it is that it’s come out of a club, so in that sense there’s a similarity. It’s come out of a party scene, that’s what we’ve been doing for the last twelve years and the album is inspired by our experiences and the things that we’ve liked and the music that we’ve played in the clubs, so in that sense you could definitely say that about Massive Attack and you could say that about Basement Jaxx, so in that way that makes sense. We’ve got guest vocalists on the album so there are similarities there. But I think musically I don’t know if I’d agree.

LU: No it is different but I think there is a UK kind of sound….

JU: It certainly doesn’t bother me, they’re great acts.

LU: No it’s a fantastic thing. There is a continuity in the sense that, musically there are differences, but the concept of what Justin talked about, an underground sound system which goes back to Notting Hill, which goes back to Northern Soul, there was a UK tradition of Black American music, Jamaican music, electronic music, European music coming in to the UK, people taking it in to the basements evolving, having a party and then like Soul to Soul and Wild Bunch, which is Massive Attack, taking it, mutating and developing it into live things. And Basement Jaxx did the same thing. Those two guys DJed in some grotty pub in south London and developed it into a live thing, so in that sense we’ve always been inspired by that great mash-up of different musical styles and coming out with something completely different and taking it out live. So in that sense I can see the parallels and it’s a great compliment. But musically obviously it’s very different. I don’t think though that people trust anything that’s engineered or sounds contrived. It has to have substance and have come from somewhere. We wanted the album to pay homage to the past but we wanted it to be something fresh and new and take it out of the basements and into the fresh air of the festivals.

JS: So you’re happy with the way things are progressing and that the underground is moving overground for you in a way?

JU: I think you’ve got to keep developing and finding new things to get excited about with music so that’s what this whole Elektrons thing is about for us. We like playing on big stages. Underground’s not really about the amount of people, it’s more about an attitude and a state of mind, it’s about people coming together and really experiencing the music, rather than music being the soundtrack to copping off or whatever, which is what a lot of clubs are about!

LU: But I also think that the notion of underground and the way people describe it can become a little bit spinal tap. The idea that it involves only 40 blokes listening to one genre of music in a pub in East London is a very self conscious, contrived thing. Me and Justin have always had no problem in playing Beyonce records next to Moodyman records next to Salsoul records next to outsider pop records, whether it was Talking Heads, Blondie or Beyonce. So the album is a reflection of that. I mean we have no problem in the way that Soul to Soul and Massive Attack walked out from the underground and didn’t water down the music one iota. So if we could follow that path we’d be very happy. Yeah we want to sell a lot of records, we’d be liars to say that we didn’t but it wouldn’t negate the soul of it or the heart of it or where we came from back in 1994.

JS: On that beautiful note guys we’ll leave it there. Thanks so much for that big long chat and enjoy the rest of the evening.

LU/JU: No problem thank you very much.

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Jude @ 14 Sep 2007 19:17

Yeah they really were absolute gents and Pete Simpson's voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It's so effortless for him and he's so humble about it. I love meeting people like that!