Interviews Archives - Page 9 of 16 -

June 24, 2016June 25, 2016

INTERVIEW: Scratch Club @ City of Colours 18.06

Words by Ed King / Pics by Michelle Martin

Scratch Club hosts MYSTRO (live) featuring DJ Lok + support from MR FX (Live) – held at The Dark Horse on Saturday 25^th June. For more info, click here.

“We set up on open mic, open decks hip hop club in the middle of Birmingham City Centre; the postcode was B1 1AA. Everyone was included.”

Scratch Club has hit double figures. Birmingham’s longest running hip hop night has nurtured world champion DJs, born internationally renowned beat boxers; it’s seen labels, rappers and artists through the closing doors of one venue and the opening doors of another And now, with a decade of promotions under its belt, we’re at the second City of Colours event in Digbeth – meeting the four corners of Scratch Club in between sets on their sound system in the Zellig car park. And amongst several things in the event air today, the word ‘inclusive’ seems to be springing from several lips. Pursed, upturned or otherwise.

Started by Tom Dunstan, aka DJ Automaton – “the artist booker, sound engineer, philosopher, psychiatrist, cat scratching post, punch bag, graphic designer and dreamer of dreams,” Scratch Club first opened its beak at The Yardbird.

Alongside beatboxer Bass6, who now runs The Beatbox Collective – an award winning ensemble ‘made up of a cast of the UK’s top beatbox talent’, Tom started Scratch Club to bring Birmingham an inclusive hip hop night, where “you can turn up and play on the decks, you can turn up and hold the mic… we left it wide open.” Now a firm sell out fixture at The Dark Horse in Moseley, Scratch Club has moved its open mics and headline acts into the leafy suburbs, hosting acts including Akala and Jehst since the start of the year.

But, as with the hip hop culture it represents, Scratch Club is a collective – a group endevour, built by those that chose their level of involvement. “We became hosts because we were the first set of open mic rappers who stood up,” explains Superbamz – Scratch Club’s ‘resident pitbull’ and co-host MC, alongside Redbeard. “No one ever came up and said ‘ok, you’re residents’. So now we have the opportunity to go and give the mic to someone who looks like they’ve got something to say; the more the merrier. And the only reason I’ve become ‘the pitbull’ is because certain people take the mick when their on the mic.”

“We can freestyle about nothing for ages,” continues Redbeard, the ‘stoner good cop’ and Yin to the darker side of Superbamz’s attention, “and maybe get a few gems in there. But by getting people up it helps us, it encourages us; there’s more vibe in the circle. Me and Bamz can keep it going but when there’s more people up there and we’re bouncing…. I’ve heard classics that will probably never be recorded, and we’ve sat there and gone ‘damn, this new kid…’ then you see them on One Xtra or whatever. That’s what it’s all about; we always try and encourage people to participate because that’s what a cypher is.”

Co-founder of Eatgood Records, Redbeard is no stranger to nurturing talent. But the open approach at Scratch Club has polished many diamonds in the rough; Tony Culverwell, aka Mr Switch, “won the DMC World Championships four times, only three consecutively” and first played at Scratch Club in 2007, after being brought to The Yardbird by his dad.

“My parents were always on the lookout for places for me to do things,” explains Culverwell, “they were always on the hunt for community things involving turntables that I could get involved in. And finding out there was a hip-hop open mic, open everything event on your doorstep… I had to see what was going on.” Was it intimidating, walking up to a strange promoter at a strange night and asking to play? “I did have my routine of records on me,” having used them to win two previous DMC Championships, “so once I’m on the decks I can ‘do this’. But I didn’t have an agenda beyond that. It’s like getting up on the mic, it’s just the way you say this is me. It’s the hip hop handshake.”

“I remember seeing, and with the greatest respect to your dad, this old really out of place looking dude,” confirms Tom Dunstan, “so I went over and bought this guy a drink. That’s when he asked if his son could get up on the deck and I was like, ‘yeah sure. Let’s give him 15minutes’.”

There is a palpable camaraderie at the table, as the collective built on ‘never any contracts’ throws supportive comments and friendly jibes at each other. It’s a team. But the ideals of hip hop can be too often claimed and not owned, with many using their forceful bravado to oppress or antagonise. This is a prevalent duality, especially today, and one that arguably flies in the face of the culture it came from. Despite all the good intentions has Scratch Club ever suffered at the back hand of the haters?

“There’s never been one shutdown,” explains Redbeard – talking about the open mic group cyphers that are a regular fixture at Scratch Club, “Sometimes people get mad, but it’s more of pride thing and an ego thing. Especially with people who are trying to become rappers, that’s what it’s all about. That’s the way it’s seen. But not every rapper is like that – I don’t rap about ‘the bitches’ and ‘the guns’ and whatever. I rap about going to work and feeding my kids. I rap about what I know.”

“Hip hop came from the streets,” continues Superbamz, “and there’s going to be that angst amongst it all. So when some people come and rap with someone who’s virtually ‘a nobody’ they can get a bit upset. But at the end of the day they’re just words. If you don’t like it do something about it. And if you’re going to cause a problem then just take it somewhere else. Luckily it’s never been like that though.”

Never any crossed words that got a bit too crossed? “I remember having to walk Redbeard out once like Batfink, with my wings of steel,” admits Tom Dunstan, “but what I loved about those early cyphers, which could get angsty, was that the really good rappers – yourselves included – once you’d ripped each other to shreds, each other’s mums, each other’s lives, each other’s style, you walked of stage and hugged each other. That attitude is kind of why I’m still doing this.” It’s a response and respect I’ve seen in many a boxing ring, but there’s usually someone with a bit too much spite in his punch. Where’s the line?

“There’s no line,” explains Superbamz – the man often clearing up the aggressive overspills from a Scratch Club cypher, “it waivers. It depends how phonetically good you are and that you’re not too offensive. And if I see that someone is hogging the mic, I’ll step in. But it’s not just my intuition; I’ll often get a nudge from Redbeard or Tom and then I’ll step in too.”

“We haven’t actually told anyone they can’t come” continues Tom, “but what we have done is made sure we’ve kept ourselves consistent – to be as good as we can be, so that hopefully other people will up their game too. And it’s the same for us. I make records that Tony plays in his world championship routines, so I’ve had to make them better. Likewise with the artists on Eatgood Records, which I wasn’t doing before I became friends with Redbeard. He pushes me up, he pushes me up… we all up our game all the time because of each other.”

It’s a healthier approach than others, with the elephant in the Internet marauding around City of Colours like a petulant giant. ‘Inclusive’ is not always a kind word. But how much shade do the storm clouds of finance and gossip throw over events such as this?

“Everything that’s happening today is all hip hop,” answers Superbamz. “The dancing, the music, the rapping, the street art, the performers – it’s all hip hop. And people who are ‘murmuring’ about it either don’t know, or don’t know enough. And people fear what they don’t know.”

“It (City of Colours) can only be good for Birmingham,” continues Redbeard, “but money’s normally the problem. This is a free event, and I don’t know the ins and outs but its good promotion for the city.”

It is strange to hear people deride anything that helps shift the perception from criminal damage to street art. But I remember when Temper started selling his work through the Mailbox’s Art Lounge gallery, when Korsa got a double page spread in the Birmingham Mail, and when a variety of other graf artists have been offered lucrative commissions from FMCG brands and retailers. In this corner of sub culture, at least, it seems behind every healthy pay check are 1000 angry reasons why it’s duplicitous or ‘selling out’.

“I’ve heard great and awful things about all of you,” continues Tom Dunstan, “I’ve heard you hated on, I’ve heard you hated on, I’ve heard you hated on; you’ve all heard me hated on. But I’ve also heard people speak amazingly well about all of you. That’s part of the deal. You’re going to get people who are really supportive and people who are… So with all that understood, do you imagine the people running one of the biggest graffiti festivals in Europe might get a bunch of haters just for existing..?”

“It’s a double edged sword,” agrees Superbamz, “the more that you get loved the more you’re going to get hated. And if you think you’re a big part of something that’s going on, and you’re not involved, you’re going to feel a problem – everybody does it. We all have that in our human nature.” Certainly sad, arguably bitter, but a true corner in probably most of our hearts. In the ten years it’s been going, has this backlash ever been a problem for Scratch Club?

“You know what it is,” continues Superbamz, “we’ve had people come to Scratch Club and they’ve come up on the mic and started to spit about postcode wars and this and that. But you turn around and politely say ‘it’s not about that. It’s just about spitting bars, if you don’t like it you know where the door is’.” I can’t argue the principle, but with the egos and aerosol still thick in the air around us how has this ‘polite’ advice been received at Scratch Club?

“They haven’t left,” describes Superbamz, “when you explain it people have just turned around and said ‘OK, I understand where you’re coming from.’ Because when it comes to music, whether it’s DJing, rapping or production, you just want people to hear you. And hip hop is a culture; everyone’s got bars and lyrics that will be enlightening to somebody.”

Scratch Club hosts MYSTRO (live) featuring DJ Lok + support from MR FX (Live) – held at The Dark Horse on Saturday 25^th June. For more info, click here.

__________

For more on Scratch Club, visit www.facebook.com/scratchclubbirmingham

For more from City of Colours, visit www.cityofcolours.co.uk

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016

INTERVIEW: Benjamin Francis Leftwich

*Benjamin Francis Leftwich plays at The Rainbow Courtyard on Thursday 5^th May – as presented by Birmingham Promoters & Kilimanjaro Live. For direct info & tickets, click here.

Words by Ed King

I over play things. It’s a habit. And for one glorious summer Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s debut album – Last Smoke Before the Snowstorm, was the repetitive soundtrack to my earphone clad existence.

Alongside Like I Used To by Lucy Rose, and If You Leave by Daughter, these three debuts owned me for a solid six months – complicit and outright. And now with Leftwich’s follow up album poised to attack, the ‘eagerly awaited’ After the Rain set for release on 19^th August, I prepare for predictability once again.

“I really appreciate that,” responds Benjamin Francis Leftwich, as I try to retain any sense of detached cool, “those two artists (Lucy Rose, Daughter) are close friends of mine and I know they’d be incredibly humbled to hear that as well. I know what you mean though; so many records of that genre were coming out then and everyone was on the same gig circuit and festivals – it was a really beautiful time and one that I’ll always cherish.”

Ah the halcyon days… But such an immediate impact can be both a blessing and a curse, with the pressures to jump even higher, especially on ‘that difficult second album’, often the antithesis to a healthy creative development. And more often than not, with the aforementioned being a triptych example, the make or break in this scenario can come down to the label.

“They’re amazing; I consider them family,” explains Leftwich – talking about Dirty Hit, his label for nearly a decade. “It’s a great home, they’ve allowed me to make the record that I wanted and needed to make. They’re just very music focused; I was almost going to say ‘tolerant’, but the people who work there have an amazing ear and ultimately they’re just music lovers who know more about how to make things work (industry) than I do.”

You do get a sense of camaraderie from the Dirty Hit roster, even from the outside looking in – like it’s more a friendly faced 4AD than a suited and booted Sony. “I’m not just saying that because we’re talking,” confirms Leftwich, “but the level of dedication goes so much further than just the music and song writing than I think people realise – it’s everything. When you’re working with an independent label like that, and you go into an office and there are five people running the whole thing… out of necessity it has to be inclusive, and song focused. And of course ambitious.”

Good to know. When my kazoo career is ready for takeoff I know where to send my demo. But it’s not all a garrulous love in at Casa de la Leftwich, as the five year hiatus between albums was the result of the illness and subsequent death of Benjamin’s father – a man the After the Rain press release describes as both ‘a parent and his number one source of inspiration’.

“…feel free to ask me what you want to ask me,” says Leftwich, as I stumble around the foundations of his latest endeavour. “There’s no question of me being offended. By ‘aspects’ do you mean things as well as the death of dad?” I do. It’s a poor choice of words, but how driven by that particular sadness was the writing process for After the Rain?

“It was hugely impactful, massively so. I’ve run through the timeline of it so much; I was with dad back in York, living in the house, and I loved that I could be there. Then I went on tour to America, which in hindsight I regret, but you know, that’s life. Then I came back and was writing in my room; me and my sister were there, sharing time.” Again the press release mentions this, how After the Rain’s opening track was ‘written in the living room opposite his father’s old house.

“We had producers coming up and setting up in the living room recording music, we had a full mixing desk in the living room at one point.” I feel like I’ve left my shoes on where I shouldn’t. But was it all about your dad?

“When something like that happens it’s more than just about that initial thing,” continues Leftwich, “it affects everything else around it. So that album (After the Rain) is massively inspired by it, and everything that followed. Not every song is about that – they cover a massive geographical and emotional range, but of course it’s a theme that runs though, and probably, subconsciously, maybe, ties them all together.”

Luckily for the sake of this conversation (and the apparent label goodwill) the first teaser from Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s new album is a superb return to form – the delicate but visceral ‘Tilikum’, which has been out in the public domain since early this year.

“The name of the song came from the name of the whale in the film Blackfish,” explains Leftwich, “and it’s a name that I was once planning on calling my baby… but that didn’t happen.” I remember ‘Tilikum’s opening six lines and choose not to ask. “And I wrote a song kind of explaining my thoughts about that and for the future. The chorus is just full of love.” The verses aren’t bad either; with a crafted sensitivity and robust pen, ‘Tilikum’ is arguably a step up from its predecessors. And that’s hard for me to say.

But there’s something else in Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s first release in half a decade, something evolved. Maybe it’s the time spent in between albums, maybe it’s the tragedy and catalyst, maybe it’s the Charlie Andrew production, or the “wider range of music than I listened to five years ago” and “sounds and textures from different records” that Leftwich references in his follow up. I honestly couldn’t say. And part of me doesn’t want to.

But with a 27 date tour before the album’s release – traversing Europe, America and Canada, and a date at our own Moseley Folk Festival, I’ll probably have enough time to find a suitably verbose suggestion.

Now someone get me Elena Tonra on the phone…

__________

Benjamin Francis Leftwich plays at The Rainbow Courtyard on Thursday 5^th May – as presented by Birmingham Promoters & Kilimajaro Live. For direct info & tickets, click visit http://therainbowvenues.co.uk/events/benjamin-francis-leftwich/

For more on Benjamin Francis Leftwich, visit http://www.benjaminfrancisleftwich.com/

For more from The Rainbow Venues, visit http://therainbowvenues.co.uk/

April 17, 2016

INTERVIEW: The Destroyers – Leighton Hargreaves

Words by Ed King

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m in the pub. Swingamajig comes back to Birmingham in a few weeks time, taking over The Rainbow Venues on 1^st May, and I am interviewing The Destroyers – one of the festival’s headline acts this year. Our chosen middle ground is The Prince of Wales in Moseley. Some days are simply better than others.

“The pub can be quiet on Monday’s and Tuesdays,” explains Leighton Hargreaves – fiddle player/room booker/diary hound for the ‘anarchic orchestra of blazing passion’, “so the owners let us have this room to rehearse.” The Destroyers are, at last count, a thirteen piece ensemble of brass, string, wind, percussion and gong; as I look around a room smaller than an executive parking space my mind does mathematical somersaults. From rehearsal rooms to stage space, I smell a Krypton Factor challenge.

“It’s a nightmare,” admits Leighton, “but the difficult thing at the moment is finding a day when everyone’s free. We book rehearsals out several months in advance but everyone’s got families and kids and it’s hard to make it work.” Do you scare off promoters? “We have seven backing vocal mics and so on. But we include a proviso that we can work with less stuff and fit on comparably smaller stages. But yes, the first thing some venues will ask is what stage space we need and whether their stage will be big enough for us.”

Swingamajig doesn’t seem perturbed though, with The Destroyers sharing the festival’s headline bill alongside Balkan Beat Box – the Tomer Yosef fronted three piece and off shoot of Gogol Bordello. And it’s the en masse energy, in part, that makes The Destroyers’ set so electric – as classically trained fervor meets a raw homage to ‘bands like Taraf De Haidouks and Besh o druM’. It’s quite a thing. But how do ‘Birmingham’s leading Mega Folk act’ – an adopted pigeonhole courtesy of a Swiss busking festival promoter, plan to tackle a well dressed flapper & dapper Electro Swing crowd?

“We’ve got one track that has a slightly swing like groove to it,” explains Leighton – as I quiz him on the band’s ‘approach’, “so we could either play that over and over for the whole hour. Or we could do what we normally do. But since our set is after midnight our approach is not to have too many artistic, audience stand-around-listening bits – we’ll just, bang bang, one danceable track after another all the way through to keep the energy up.” A small flicker of anarchy and joy escapes into the room. “…then ramp it up right towards the end; we’ll keep it a storming set. By after midnight that’s what people want.”

And that’s no doubt what the Swingamajig crowd will get, desire and by 12midnight probably deserve. Birmingham Review was shamelessly late to this particular party, breaking our cherry at Swingamajig 2015, but was won over by the embraced mayhem and mature debauchery that we witnessed 12 months ago. And it’s not really an Electro Swing event either, with enough genre bending sets to furnish moves from lindy hop to break dance. My biggest mistake was not dressing up.

But life on the festival circuit is arguably more business as usual for The Destroyers, as the klezmer jazz/gypsy folk (…Bern promoters be damned) who have “never been further east than Warsaw” are more likely to find space on a larger bill.

“We’ve been to Ireland, we’ve been to Italy, we’ve been to Switzerland, but we haven’t toured widely in Europe,” explains Leighton, “most of our gigs are in the UK. We’ve tried to tour Europe but the thing that makes it difficult is the sheer cost of it. Firstly you’ve got to fly us all there, and then we’d have to have hotels paid for on top of our fee – unless it’s a city council sponsored event it would become prohibitively expensive. When private promoters and festivals put us on in the UK we can slum it a bit; sleep on peoples floors and make it economical that way.”

I imagine it’s a concern; suddenly a bowl of red M&Ms doesn’t seem too much to manage. Our interview today was set up by Tom Hyland from Electro Swing Circus, and the man on everyone’s call sheet for Swingamajig. But honestly, I was fearful of my expense account not knowing how many destroyers would be waiting for me in Moseley. Mercifully Leighton was the only one and our conversation could be surmised in a pint.

But a band member in the pub is worth two in the bush, or words to that effect. And The Destroyers’ “current recording plan is to release two EPs” – following last May’s The Vortex with Licence to Sing, scheduled for release in June this year. Then it’s time for album No3, with a working title of The Massive Gong in the pipeline for 2017.

The Vortex Cannon – The Destroyers

“All of our recordings are named after one of the songs,” explains Leighton, as I fumble around a childish faux par, “and we’ve got a song called ‘The Massive Gong’. It’s easier to name something after a song than an instrumental. But the full album will feature some material from the two EPs alongside some new material. Then after we release our album the next thing we might do are collaborations – Katy Rose Bennett sang on or second album; maybe we’ll do some collaborations with more singers.”

Sounds good, with additional vocalists adding to the already ferocious thirteen strong ensemble. But does the logistical challenge ever become too much to get out of bed for? Thirteen is not a number known for being lucky. “It’s gone up and down over the years,” explains Leighton, “with the most we’ve had being fifteen. When we first started out we were inspired by these Balkan folks groups like Taraf De Haidouks and it’s quite common, with those sorts of bands, for there to be more than ten players so I guess we just adopted that mindset.”

I can’t comfortably write prose with anyone else in the room. Have the changing numbers ever become a potential blue touch paper? “Sam Wooster sang the lead vocals on ‘The Vortex Cannon’, that we recorded last year, then moved to Australia before we’d had a chance to make the video. We’re keeping a space in the band open for Sam – we got a small child to mime singing his words.” Problem solved. Any greater disturbances to the force?

“When Louis (Robinson, founding father) left we had to decide whether to carry on or not – that’s the big change over the last couple of years. But the rest of us collectively took up the reigns so we decided to give it a go and take it from there.” And how is life after Louis? “We’re in the middle of a new recording project since then; we’ve been writing new material. It’s taken us a while to work out what we’ll do and how we’ll make it work, but it’s on a good trajectory right now.”

And Birmingham breathes a sigh of relief. But seriously, a band of thirteen playing between twenty and forty gigs a year – is that not a little… brave? Even foolhardy?

“Foolhardy… what’s the right word? It’s what we do and we’re happy with what we do. But there’s no question it’s impractical. Rather than starting out with something that would be financially viable, we just thought we’d go for something that’s a great fun carnival.”

The Destroyers headline Swingamajig 2016, on Sunday 1^st May – held across The Rainbow Venues from 2pm to 6am.

For more on The Destroyers, visit http://thedestroyers.co.uk/

_______

For more on Swingamajig, visit http://swingamajig.co.uk/

For more from the Rainbow Venues, visit http://therainbowvenues.co.uk/

April 16, 2016

INTERVIEW: Mike Carey / M R Carey

Words by Olly MacNamee / Pic of Mike Carey @ Charlie Hopkinson

Warning: This interview contains some spoilers for M R Carey’s book The Girl With All The Gifts.

With an impressive writing career in comics, as well as a growing sideline as a novelist and screenwriter, Birmingham Review caught up with Mike Carey at Waterstone’s in Birmingham City Centre – talking about his new novel, Fellside, his previous novel and soon-to-be film, The Girl With All The Gifts, his comics, heaven, hell, and how ‘we think we live in the real world’.

Olly MacNamee (OM): I like the multiple perspectives you present in The Girl With All The Gifts. Is this a narrative technique you adopt in your new novel, Fellside?

Mike Carey (MC): It is, although in the first draft it was a single point of view.

OM: Was that Jess, the prisoner at Fellside?

MC: No. Actually it was Sylvia Stark, a very minor character in the novel; an evil, obsessive nurse who tries to kill Jess right from the outset. I chose her because she’s tangential to the story, someone who is looking onto the tragedy that unfolds and a tragedy she doesn’t understand, or her own part in it. But it didn’t really work because it forced me to talk around certain things, and delay certain reveals, so I recast it with multiple points of view. Yes, it’s the same kind of storytelling device as The Girl With All The Gifts, but it isn’t in the present tense, like Girl.

I was very concerned not to do a follow up to Girl; the same kind of flavour, the same kind of storytelling. I wanted to branch out a bit and it is a very, very different book. Fellside is a ghost story and, as such, the balance between the real world elements and the fantastical elements is different in Fellside. If you take away Alex, the ghost, Fellside is a prison narrative – in some ways reflective of other classic prison based narratives, with familiar character types such as Harriet Grace, the woman who runs all the rackets in the prison, and Dennis Devlin, the corrupt warder… What I wanted to do, also, was to say something about the present state of British prisons.

Private prisons, sadly, are the future because they are so cheap compared to the public alternative; it takes it off the government’s books and places it into the hands of corporations who pick up the tab. The cost of such as system is that you then get the perverse incentives of Capitalism kicking in. You are talking about companies whose product are prisoners, and so they can only increase their profit if they either have more prisoners or if they keep their prisoners for longer. So these companies will be lobbying the government to change the law, to put more people in prison and for longer time too.

OM: Were you aware of these issues before researching for Fellside?

MC: It’s part of the reason why I chose a prison setting, although there were lots of other reasons too. For example, claustrophobic settings, I love them. I love settings where a small cast of characters are forced to interact with each other. The military base in The Girl With All The Gifts is another such place, Fellside even more so. From a dramatic point of view it’s irresistible.

OM: Fellside is a thought-provoking novel. Is this something we could do with more of in comics? After all, your work on the Vertigo comic Lucifer looked at the notions of free will, whilt your other Vertigo comics’ series, The Unwritten, looked at the very nature of reality itself.

MC: Well, when I come up with an idea, it’s always characters and a setting first, and then I build the story. I’ve learnt the hard way over thirty years, for me it’s the only way that works. If you start with the story you end up with two-dimensional characters, you build the story around the characters. So I’m never consciously thinking of themes that my story will address.

Having said that, I don’t think you can write without it coming from your perspective, from how you look at the world around you. In The Unwritten that is an exception, as we definitely set out to write a story about stories and the extent to which stories are the only things that really matter. Ambrosio says in the first issue that stories are the only thing worth dying for. We have a more radical position even than that: stories are the only thing there is. We think we live in a real world, we don’t. We live in stories about ourselves in the story of the real world. There is a lot of psychological research to suggest that the self, our sense of self, is a narrative.

OM: Of course, our first lessons in morality come from fairy tales and folklore when we’re just toddlers. Your Lucifer is based on concepts explored by Milton in his epic narrative poem, Paradise Lost. And whether William Blake wanted to create a hero out of the Devil in his book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he did. What is it about character of Lucifer that draws writers to him?

MC: I think Lucifer is powerful figure because he’s got such a wide range of possible meanings. I think that all myths that survive do so because you can apply them in so many different ways to life and your own life.

Lucifer starts off as the adversary to God, the embodiment of the darker impulses in our nature. The moment you do embody him the more he becomes attractive and glamorous. You are thinking, ‘actually, he’s pretty cool.’ Milton does not set out to make a hero out of Lucifer in Paradise Lost. He’s supposed to be the bad guy but he’s the most interesting character in the story. In Books 6 and 7, the War in Heaven, it’s basically heroic fantasy with Lucifer the big guy holding the biggest sword, like Conan. You end up rooting for him.

OM: Finally, it was announced recently that the TV series of Lucifer will be renewed for a second season. You’ve written the screenplay for the film adaption of your novel, The Girl With All The Gifts – would you be interested to write the odd episode of Lucifer?

MC: Damn straight. I would totally do that and do my damndest to sneak in a story from the comic book series. I think American networks will go with known American writers with proven track records, but you never know.

M R Carey’s Fellside is available now in hardback, whilst his previous novel, The Girl With All The Gifts is available in paperback. Mike Carey’s comic book work is also available as trade paperbacks.

For more on Mike Carey / M R Carey, visit http://mikeandpeter.com

January 27, 2016January 27, 2016

INTERVIEW: Scroobius Pip

Words by Olly MacNamee

Bringing that beat back once again to Birmingham, Scroobius Pip’s We Are Lizards returns the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) this Saturday 30^th January – for direct gig info & online tickets, click here

Olly MacNamee caught up with the club night’s well versed founder for a quick Birmingham Review Q&A – sharing a slightly graying love for comics, 12” acetate and the lure of the second city.

BR: What is the draw to Birmingham, given your club nights tend to run in London?

SP: It’s a bit of a second home for me because I went to Wolverhampton University, the only place outside of my hometown I’ve ever lived. With a lot of my friends at Birmingham University I spent a lot of time there around 2001.

Yeah, the people at the Hare & Hounds… every time I’ve gone there, I’ve always got on really well with them. I’ve performed at their Spoken Word nights, Speak Up, that they used to put on. I liked everyone, I liked the venue, I liked the place, so really, although I tend to do the We Are Lizards club nights exclusively in London, Birmingham tends to tempt us back. I’ve also sent artists from my label there (Speech Development Records); B Dolan went there. I’ve also done the Speech Development tour there, with Warren Peace and B Dolan.

BR: As long as you avoid Broad Street, it’s a great city.

SP: Yeah, definitely. And I’ve been in a bit of bother on Broad Street in my time, but that’s Broad Street for you.

BR: You’re better off staying in the Hare & Hounds.

SP: Yeah, yeah. I agree. The whole Kings Heath area was new to me. The first time I performed at the Hare & Hounds was with, amongst other people, Musa Okwonga, who is a god of the spoken word, and a guy called Ed Sheeran who’s done quite well since. It really is a good spot.

BR: So what can people expect from a Scroobius Pip/We Are Lizards club night?

SP: Simply, a really good party. And another reason we keep on coming back to Birmingham, and specifically the Hare & Hounds, is that the people seem to just get it. Although the music does tend to lean towards Hip Hop, Funk and RnB and a bit of Indie, we never actually have any set rules. As long as people are getting into it and dancing, we’re happy.

I’ve been doing it in London, monthly nights for four years now, then when we took it to the Hare & Hounds and realized it was busy enough for us to come back, we were sold. The next two times it was rammed out and people were getting into it. What I liked, and it is a bit of a Midlands thing, is that the crowd was straight onto it. They were all up for it and up for a dance. In London it can be a slower start, but in Birmingham, and after a live band maybe – offering local talent a stage – we get the DJs on, including DJ Destruction who’s a former DMC champ. People were coming up to him all night long asking who he was, when he’s back, when can they see him again. He’s our jewel in the crown.

The club night in Birmingham is a bit of a weird one for me too. I don’t often drink these days, I’ve just drifted away from it really, but in Birmingham I do always tend to drink. I don’t think I’ve even drunk in 2016 yet, so the We Are Lizard club night might well be the first time.

BR: I’ll buy you a drink if I see you on Saturday. But moving away from We Are Lizards, like your namesake (‘The Scroobius Pip’ by Edward Lear) you seem to be something of a career chimera – with your Distractions Pieces podcast, your club nights, music, and even a graphic novel. Anything else we should know about?

SP: I’ve got a couple of comic book ideas, but they’re bouncing around with a lot of other projects at the moment. But on Monday I’ve got Kieron Gillen (comic book writer) and Jamie McKelvie (comic book artist) who did the comic, The Wicked + The Divine, coming in to record a podcast that should be out sometime in February. Gillen is currently writing the Marvel Darth Vader comic, so I’m a huge fan of them and looking forward to that. Jamie is the first comic book artist I’ve interviewed, having already interviewed comic book writers like Alan Moore (Watchmen) and Garth Ennis (Preacher).

BR: And what about your tastes in music? With the way we can access music now, have you found you’ve become more eclectic? When I was younger I had just enough money to buy one album a week, and one only.

SP: Yeah. In my day at school, like you, if you were into Punk, like I was, you were into Punk and that was it. But when I worked in HMV, and before ‘free music’ over the Internet, that was the first place I found I could try out different genres of music more readily. Then people who worked in record shops knew their stuff, they were hugely knowledgeable of the particular section. They knew their shit. You could talk to the Hip Hop guy and he could tell you what was good.

I worry that, because music is a bit more disposable, we are going to see people that don’t have those (physical) albums that changed their lives, that spoke to them. I agree, in my day I could afford a couple of albums a month and that meant that those albums were played inside and out and I knew every lyric to every song, B-sides included. Now you can just grab a hundred songs in moments, skip through the bits that you like only. But I try not to focus on that ‘coz you can come off as the bitter musician asking people to, ‘stop stealing my music’. But yeah, it does sadden me.

The amount of repairs my mum used to have to do to my coats, because the CD Discman didn’t quite fit into my pocket. But again, I would only take the one CD to school, not three or four. I used to have to get the train to school and listen to Punk, Metal, whatever.

BR: Any stand out albums that mean a lot to you? One’s you go back to.

SP: Three albums that stand out for me particularly in my formative musical years was Rancid’s Out Come the Wolves, Offspring’s Smash – which was a great record, Green Day’s seminal album, Dookie. Those were my teen years and I loved them. I’ve still got nothing but love for Green Day, even though I’m not that much into their new stuff.

BR: With the clock ticking… again like your namesake, are you ‘the wisest beast’ of them all?

SP: I think I definitely am (laughs). I feel like I’m old as fuck now, and that translates for me into wisdom.

Scroobius Pip presents We Are Lizards at the Hare & Hounds (Kings Heath) on Saturday 30^th January – featuring Scroobius Pip, Destruction, Push Music, Redshift Rebels, Disco Stu + The Oddysee (live) For direct gig info & online tickets, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/new-show-scroobius-pip-presents-we-are-lizards/

For more on Scroobius Pip, visit http://www.scroobiuspip.co.uk/

For more on the Hare & Hounds, visit http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk/