I caught up with Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip just before they played their gig at Garden Court where they talked to me about racism, X Factor and what to do when your Halloween costume doesn’t turn up.
You’re about halfway through your tour at the moment, how’s it going?
Pip: It’s been good, I’m personally at the re-energized point of the tour because I had the feeling sick part.
Dan: You got quite snotty and ill didn’t you?
Pip: Now I’m on the YEAH part and I’m ready to smash the end of it.
What have been the highlight and lowlights?
Pip: Birmingham was wicked and the most accommodating crowd surf that I’ve ever done, they were very nice and gentle. Although Sheffield might have beaten that crowd surf because…
Dan: They took you a long way.
Pip: Manchester and Leeds are always good .
Dan: But don’t underestimate Aberdeen, it was a huge crowd.
Pip: But they haven’t stuck in my memory as being a really strong crowd for some reason.
Dan: Because you’re racist, you hate the Scots, you hate the Irish, you hate the Welsh.
Pip: I thought Aberdeen were good but for some reason they’ve not stuck, it could have been the venue. It was a low ceiling and I’m very tall. So that might have thrown me a little bit. Don’t get me wrong they were good, but they haven’t stuck as a top five.
Dan: In my top five easily.
You’ve played a lot of festivals this summer, which was your favourite?
Pip: Marc Irvine fest in Manchester, Glastonbury and Bestival were wicked and Beach Break and Lowlands.
Dan: Polar was good as well and that weird one in Romania.
Pip: I think Electric Picnic and Lowlands were really good because we’d done a load of ones that were cool for how weird they were but not necessarily the most enjoyable gigs like the one in Romania that was in a fort and some other surreal things so to then get to Lowlands where it’s a big tent rammed with people who know all the words and are into it was good.
Dan: Our festival season’s not over yet, we’ve got three more to go.
How do you find the differences between a big festival and a headline gig like tonight?
Pip: It’s something that they complement each other, at the end of a couple of tours it’s nice to get back to festivals and be in a different kind of crowd each time but at the end of the festival season it’s good to have your own crowd there who can take in anything and you can play a proper set rather than pandering to the people who wouldn’t know who we are.
Dan: You still want everyone to enjoy it, it’s not like we’re pandering to gain more fans but we do want to give people at festivals who are just popping in to see us the opportunity to hear the bangingest and most excitingesque we can be.
Pip: At festivals we try and tune it down to one or two songs about death whereas at our live shows it’ll be three or four, we’ll ramp that up a bit.
It was over two years between your debut album ‘Angles’ and your latest album ‘Logic of Chance’, does that mean there won’t be a new album until 2012?
Pip: Probably, but for different reasons. 2012 really is the end of the world and we’re going to be doing an Olympics album. Seriously we both have side projects to work on after this tour and then we’ll come back to start writing the third album some time in 2011, hopefully for 2012.
You did a spoof X Factor video to promote ‘Letter from God to man’, what are your thoughts on the program?
Pip: I have no beef with the X Factor, I think it’s easy to hate but if you’re aware it’s an entertainment show rather than a music show then that’s fine and it clearly entertains millions of people because it gets huge figures and everyone talks about it so it’s ticking all the boxes there really.
Dan: It puts loads of money into the music industry and whether you like it or not a lot of that money goes into paying for so many of the smaller bands you love. I always find it funny when the emo kids and the metal kids get pissed off with it because metal and emo is still major label music and so the money’s going back and forth between the X Factor pop and your metal bands all day long and yet they’re going ‘it’s not real music’ when it’s probably paying for their favourite band’s tour so SHUT IT!
Well said, what was your favourite record of the year?
Dan: So far for me it’s Infesticons – ‘Bedford Park’ although I’m pretty into the Steve Mason album but they’re so different so I’m gonna have them both.
Pip: It’s allowed.
Dan: Did you say Girls Aloud?
Pip: Yeah, the Girls Aloud greatest hits… no the Gil Scott-Heron album was really good but other than it’s obvious but I love the XX record.
Dan: That was last year. Just after the last mercury awards.
Pip: Was it? I’m not sure then, I’ve been listening to Kid-A’s EP because we’re on the road together so we hear their songs all the time and that’s wicked.
Finally, it’s Halloween tomorrow and you’re playing in Brighton, have you got any plans to dress up?
Pip: Well in this beard I’m in costume all year long.
Dan: I had all of this costume that was like a skeleton thing like the Karate Kid people but it didn’t come in time so I cancelled the order so I’ve bought a little suit for my penis which makes it into a hamster.
