Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip
Estella Adeyeri interviews the DJ and beatpoet team, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip.
DJ Dan Le Sac and performance poet Scroobius Pip together form the duo best known for their hit ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ back in 2007. Now with a string of festival dates lined up this summer and the promise of new material shortly heading our way, the two are proving to be more than simply a one-hit wonder. Having started out as solo artists, the alliance of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip came about somewhat by chance, as Scroobius describes: “Despite growing up about five minutes from each other in the same town, we didn’t really meet properly until college and then working together in a record shop. This loose connection helped us to re-meet over MySpace several years after we stopped working together in a record shop, and then we started working together again – not in a record shop.”
Dan continues, “I booked Scroob to play at my night Ibetya. In between booking him and the night I did a few remixes of his solo album (No Commercial Breaks, 2006), and somewhere along the line we wrote ‘Thou Shalt…’ People were talking about us like we were a band before we had really thought about it – that’s why we have such an awkward name.”
As a band they went on to produce music that is seemingly impossible to define, as Scroobius says: “We don’t really fit into any one genre – we slip in and out of the indie crowd, hip hop heads, dance kids, poetry types and everyone else in between.” Their musical influences are equally diverse, with Dan describing them as “artists that you can’t really hear in [our first] record – people like Joy Division, Mogwai and Godspeed! You Black Emperor are the reason I make music.”
The poetic influence of Scroobius Pip is also integral to their sound. Scroobius says that he originally got into performance poetry because he “wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else. It’s a scene within which you only have yourself to blame if you don’t progress. There’s no unreliable drummer or drunk bassist to blame.” He also gets very involved in the production process of the band’s music videos. “The ‘Thou Shalt…’ video was dreamed up by our regular video genius, Nick Frew. The two of us then met up and went back and forth with ideas. For the next three or four videos I came up with the starting ideas and, again, we sat down and expanded upon them. I really enjoy that process.”
Earlier this year the band released a reworked version of ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ featuring hip hop veteran Posdnous of De La Soul. Upon asking how the collaboration came about Dan replied: “Our label Sunday Best had wanted to re-release ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ for ages but it never really worked for us – the idea of re-releasing your most successful track is really cringe-worthy but when the opportunity came along to work with Pos on it, it began to make sense. It felt like we had the chance to get someone else’s perspective on the record.”
This year though they are looking to move on from ‘Thou Shalt…’ from their first album Angles. They are currently demoing tracks for a brand new record. Scroobius says: “This is actually our ‘taking it easy’ summer, despite having twenty-odd festivals booked. The main focus is new material. We have turned a lot down this year so we can keep working away on the next album. But we aren’t looking to rush anything – we want to make sure the second album is as good as we can make it.”
Asking which festival they are most looking forward to playing this summer, Dan replies immediately with Barcelona’s finest: “Sonar, Sonar and Sonar. It’s easily the festival I’ve most wanted to attend, let alone play, in my life time. From what I can gather it an awesome festival and we’ve got a fairly big posse from our label going so it should be double dope.”
So whether or not you think they’re just a band, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip are sticking around, continuing their eclectic mix of poetry and electro that has proved to captivate audiences. If you catch them at a festival this summer you may hear a snippet of some of the new tunes they have in store, otherwise keep your eyes and ears open for a new release next year.
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