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Interview
by SashaS
22-4-2002
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| The three riders of X-Press 2 |
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House heads
X-Press 2 find themselves with a great album and a No. 2 hit
The end of the X-Press 2 interview occurs suddenly when, halfway through Diesel’s answer on subject of developing ambition, Ashley Beedle discovers, while looking for a cognac in a hotel’s commode, a CD by the John Wilson Orchestra and his eyes zero on track No. 4. “Wow, look at this, track 4!” Diesel scans the back cover: the song is named ‘Lazy’ and its composer is Irvin Berlin. “Is that a sign or what?”, Beedle continues to boom with delight. “I gotta show it to Rocky!” and both dash to the other suite’s room where he is doing another interview.
‘Lazy’ is X-Press 2’s collaboration with David Byrne, the legendary Talking Heads’ frontman, that made two members talk delightedly about its predicted charting anywhere between positions 2 and 10. (It actually entered at Number 2, the most successful of their three hits.) The single is culled from the band’s debut album, ‘Muzikizum’ and demonstrates the XP2’s proud standing on the shoulders of club-giants such as Leftfield, Daft Punk, Basement Jaxx, The Chemical Brothers…
But before we talk music, ‘hanging out’ with famous people and working with a budget for the first time that afforded them the ‘Lazy’ video to be directed by Spike Jonze’s ex-assistant, Howard Shut, we had to ask the London-based members about doing interviews on the day the Queen Mum’s burial: anti-monarchists, Republicans or plain anarchists?
“Great, nobody’s asked us that question yet!” Beedle’s face alights. “We are musical anarchists, we are not great Monarchists but we are definitely not Republicans as we wouldn’t like Tony Blair as the President! But, it doesn’t really matter to us because we live outside of it all.”
“It’s like we created this lifestyle,” Diesel joins in, “that runs parallel to the reality. Ours is a society that exists on the edge of the norm, just for the sake of hedonism. We turned out to be this interesting paradox, if you ask me. All I can really say is that we are a very, very lucky people.”
“Someone asked if we were trying to marry art with house,” Beedle interjects, “and I said – yes! I believe that art and music make magic…”
Majestic supasongs
‘Lazy’ comes from the house production team’s debut album ‘Muzikizum’ that also sees them joining creative forces with Dieter Meier of the Suisse art-electro-experimentalists Yello. David Byrne’s collaboration happened when they constructed this track that sounded like “Talking Heads” and they remembered that Byrne had asked them, believing that their earlier incarnation Ballistic Brothers had been a proper band, to support him on his Euro-dates.
“All true but the biggest shock for me,” Beedle remembers, “when I went to meet him in New York at the Luaka Bop offices, was that he was talking about everything except our track. There was this coffee machine and he was giving me all this coffee to drink, which I usually don’t but was polite to decline until the moment when I said, ‘Take a look at these hands!’, a line from one of his songs, and they were shaking! That broke the ice and he came to the gig I was playing that night and he danced the night away! Despite his reputation of being a bad-dancer, it was an act, he was ripping the floor up!”
“We only met him when we flew to New York,” Diesel interjects,” to do a photo shoot for a magazine cover and he was everything we expected him to be. Cool, humble, weird, deep and really focused on art and how it integrates with society.”
Glam machine
The three DJs have been together for a decade ago and since then have produced a number of minor hits as well as done numerous remixes. But, it is the first time they have had Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim, with whom their share label), demanding to remix ‘Lazy’, have a proper video-clip and are doing global promotion. A long way from working for the Ministry of Defence (Rocky & Diesel) and managing a Soho records store (Beedle)…
“We like all that’s been happening lately,” Beedle comments, “because a potential has been shown to us. Where we go from here is a big question…”
“We never plan anything, ever,” Diesel explains, “and if we do we usually deviate instantly… I’m glad not to work to any plan but work on day-to-day basis… The scariest moment was when we were re-doing the backing track to ‘Lazy’, after David had completed his vocal, and I thought we could screw it up… But then, we just did what we felt, as we usually do…”
That was the moment Beedle spotted the CD…
SashaS
8-10-2002
X-Press 2’s album ‘Muzikizum’ is released 22 April 2002 on Skint/SINE
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