Q: I've been listening to your new album AKA - it's great! I can totally get that you're a TIGA fan. Me too.
A: Thanks, I am glad you like it! Yeah, I love that guy. One of my mates says we are brothers from another mother, and actually some of the labels and producers I have been in touch with have mentioned the similarity between his version of Hot In Here and my version of Work It, which is nice. I like his old school house vibe, but I also love that he has a personality and sings about weird shit! There's so much anonymity and conformity in dance music, which is why I love more out-there artists like him and Peaches and Green Velvet.
Q: An impressive roster of big names are featured on this album, how did that come about?
A: It started with me having a bunch of tracks which were collaborations with guests on them, and some remixes too that were just kind of lying around. As the album progressed and some of those tracks went onto it thought it would be quite a neat idea to try and get a guest on each track. There are some very different artists from different scenes, and the fact that some of these folks were actually up for collaborations was pretty mind blowing. My music is still quite unpolished I feel so to have some of these folk liking it and wanting to work with me was very gratifying. I have also deliberately stayed away from using the word "featuring" because these tracks are just as much the guests' as they are mine. Instead I've used an abbreviation of "with" which is more fair and doesn't need an explanation of "this person is a vocalist, this person is a producer, etc", because I collaborate in different roles myself too. Like I sung on Ben Butler and Mousepad's last album, and then it made sense to ask him to put some synths on my album in return.
Q: As you worked on each track were you conscious of how they'd all hang together as an album?
A: After a point I did yeah, but to be honest when I was planning out this album a few years ago the tracklisting was very different. I wanted to make something that was very eclectic, that incorporated a lot of different genres like rock and techno and disco. But as time went on I was less happy with that, and started to think of putting older tracks like "Like Em Fat" and "If U Want It" on there, and then the album became much more coherent. It also sprang from me wanting to work with openly gay rappers, so the album has a hip-hop feel, but more old school so I could still use my drum machines and stuff on it. Once I stuck to that idea it all just came together, and I was able to use some rap classics like "36 Chambers" by the Wu Tang Clan and "Miss E So Addictive" by Missy Elliot as templates.
Read the full interview here.
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