Sumo
I Know What You Did Last, Sumo
I
knew I shouldn’t have mentioned football. Leicester City still
rooted to the foot of the Premiership (and now, at the time of writing,
relegated), and it turns out Dan Raven from Sumo is a bloody Wolves
fan. Great. That’s just what I need after we’d sold the only
player (Dean Sturridge) able to hit an elephant with a ping pong ball
to our orange wearing Midlands rivals and watched as he clocked up the
goals week in week out, putting them in prime position for automatic
promotion. What? Gold you say? Is it bollocks! Even so, the voice of
this dynamic duo seems to be in sympathetic mode and the extent of the
ridicule has so far only culminated in “Yeah, Sturridge… Thanks
for that”, so I quickly delve into my other questions before it
can get any worse.
AD: So, how’s the recording going?
DR:
It’s going fine. We’re having an absolute blast working with
Charlie Francis – he’s a complete lunatic. We’ve recorded
a song called “Brass Monkey” which sounds like the detonation
of an H-bomb. We’ve also been working on a very emotive song titled
“Spark It Up”, which is all about weed and love, and love
of weed.
AD: I think we can all relate to that sentiment. Anyway, it occurred
to us at Atomicduster (and probably most of the folk reading this) that
we know absolutely bugger all about you, barring your exceptionally
brilliant debut single “Unseeded”. Can you give us a brief
synopsis of what you’re all about?
DR: We’re interested in making records with a certain kind
of subtlety to them - bass, riffs and melodies being at the forefront
as opposed to flowery keyboard lines. The prototype for that vision
was “Unseeded”. We thought it was both urgent and beautiful,
and, well…it worked for us anyway. It’s got a real rock ‘n’
roll quality, and it would be nice to take the power back from all those
homogenous acts like Ian Van Dahl and Alice Deejay. Can you tell the
difference between those two? Because I can’t. We’re trying
to use the industry and to break it at the same time. Then again, as
concerned as we are, we’re all cogs in the machine. Whether we
can fuck it up’s the thing. I think, with the stuff we do, we stand
a good chance of alienating people, but I don’t think we should
just sit by and watch while people like Will Young have number one hits
with a song that just happens to be an old Westlife track…
AD: Talking about that whole Pop Idol thing, with the current popularity
of reality game shows and crap manufactured boy/girl bands, would you
say that the general public is getting more and more stupid or is there
another explanation?
DR: I don’t think the public are stupid. I just think that
if you advertise Walls’ sausages on TV every day, people will buy
Walls’ sausages. Gareth Gates and Will Young have had six months
of press and the whole Pop Idol thing was promoted to the point of saturation.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why theses records became
the fastest selling in history. And of course the media industry is
more than willing to cough out bullshit for its own financial gain.
AD: I know – it’s worrying. Almost as worrying is a track
you have called “Midget Sex Pills”. Er…what?
DR: (laughs) That’s to do with Robin Finch, who designed the
cover to “Unseeded”. He was telling me this story about how
he went away for a couple of days and ended up having a “Bad Lieutenant
weekend”. He was given some drugs, and afterwards he just found
himself outside in the middle of nowhere. He was gone for about three
days, and when he came back were “Shit man. He gave me these midget
sex pills” and I thought “We’ve gotta write a song about
that”!
AD: You said he designed the artwork. Is there a message behind it?
DR: Yeah. It’s about the way British culture is heading –
the way that we seem to be giving guns to monkeys.
AD: How much of a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle do you lead?
DR: Er…not at all. We’re too busy at the moment to be
honest. Staying up late’s about the most rock ‘n’ roll
thing we do, but even that’s just for the recording. We’ve
had no time for much drinking either, but we’re hoping to change
all that soon.
AD: So are you saying that you’d be more likely to go back to
your hotel room for a sleep rather than to smash it up?
DR: Ha ha. We’d be more likely to smash it up out of frustration
as opposed to any “rock ritual”. Like I said, we’re trying
to change all that, so you might be seeing some nasty pictures of us
in the Sun soon.
AD: So what is your ultimate dream?
DR: To be shot in the face in a midget brothel.
AD: Er…right…o…k then (At this point in my notes the
words “odd cureball” appear to have been scribbled down. I
have no idea what the goggins that’s supposed to mean so I move
swiftly on…actually I have no idea what “goggins” means
either). So, where do you think you fit in, in the world of showbiz?
DR: Well I think there’s an obvious gap in the market for us
to play with people’s psyches. I suppose that’s what all these
Pop Idol bands do as well to an extent, but in the worst possible way.
Now you’ve got all these ludicrous American Rock bands coming through
who are just as bad.
AD: Surely you don’t mean the Strokes? They’re great.
DR: No, I like the Strokes. I like that raw sound and I think it
owes a lot to the Stooges. I’m talking about these bands who are
put together entirely for their own monetary benefit. Bands like the
Strokes, Hives and Daft Punk are our saviours really. I just think the
kids are bored to tears being told who they should be listening to nowadays.
AD: Finally, if you could have anybody else’s job in the world,
whose would it be?
DR: Funny you should ask that, as we were looking through the Guardian
earlier on today and there’s an advert in there for the position
of Nuclear Weapons Regulator! I’m not convinced that’s one
you should be able to advertise publicly really, but there you go, that’s
the job I’D want!
And I left the interview feeling sure that he was the correct man
for the position. Let’s face it, the first thing he’d blow
to smithereens would be bands like Five, Steps and…oh…er..hang
on a minute….
Interview and Transcript by Tone E
