Posted May 13, 2008 by Conor_C :: 6 comments

Bathing Jape

Richie Egan, aka Jape, is just three weeks away from the release of his new album. The little guy from Dublin mixes indie, hip hop, house and electro together and comes away with super tight melodies that rock. He’s also down with the kids as he explains here.

Have you plans to go to any festivals this summer? I’ll only really be at the festivals I’m playing at. But Primavera is the most amazing festival. The line up this year is so good. They’ve got everything. I really wanted to go to that but I got gigs on at the same time. We played a gig at Summercase on the same stage as Daftpunk once and that was amazing.

You’re playing both the dance and the park stage at Glastonbury this year. Will you do different sets? Yeah I’ll definitely keep it upbeat for the dance stage and calm it down for the park stage. MGMT are on the same day after so it’s a really cool line up.

You’re a fan of MGMT? Yeah I am. There is a touch of the Dandy Warhol’s straight to ringtone sound about them.

They're part of that whole new ironic sound that seems to take influences from every style and screw with them. There is a fun element to it, like with Dan Deacon. Kids are getting into loads of new different things. The internet has made everything so accessible. As kids are getting their heads around technology and that, garage bands are going to start springing up. Dublin will produce an amazing band in the next few years.

Do you ever have really shit gigs? We had one in London a while ago and it was fucking horrible. It just started falling on its ass. It can be loads of different things that make it happen but the audience is always right. If you win them over you can do anything but if you don’t it’s a real bang to the confidence. The audience looks to you to see how they should feel

You’re always getting compared to other artists. What’s the worst one for you? The Irish Beck is the most annoying. It’s lazy but if people want to reference things let them. I’d always be honest and try and do my own thing.

What’s worse getting dumped by a label or by a girlfriend? By a girlfriend definitely. The label thing in the greater scheme of things isn’t that big a deal. What does success mean to you? Success for me is just getting better at writing songs. You can’t think about it in commercial terms as you’ve no control over that.

If someone offered to grant all your musical dreams with the one condition that you’d die aged 40, would you take it? I’d rather be unsuccessful and alive than successful and dead. Anyday.

Have you had to sacrifice much to be a musician? I think you gain more. I had a fairly good job that I jacked in and since I was sixteen I’ve always had gigs and haven’t been able to take a year off and travel like most young people, but I’m travelling a lot now.

Who’s dominating your iPod at the moment? Chromatics are brilliant and Cass McCombs

Do you ever listen to your old songs and cringe? Big time. That’s why this album took so long as I wanted to have as few of those ‘Jaysus’ moments as possible. You can never fully eradicate it. You can twinkle away at it forever but in the end you have to abandon it.

Soulwax play Floating in their sets. Is that your version of Radiohead’s Creep? Yeah, I felt that when the record was kind of caught up, like will that be the only song that people know from me. But it was cool. It opened up a lot of doors for me and I still love playing it. It’s one of those songs that just has legs.

In the song I Was A Man you say you lost your virginity to November Rain. Is that true? It was actually a Smashing Pumpkins song . I never really liked Guns and Roses but it had the right amount of syllables.