The experimental duo who brought us the gloriously filthy single Hustler last year sit down with Analogue before their pounding set at the Electric Picnic to answer a few questions.

So although you are now on your own, Simian is no more, why did you keep the name afterwards? Why not call yourself something different and break the reference to your old band?
Jess: People say Simian Mobile Disco was instrumental in breaking up Simian but it wasn’t at all. It was part of Simian, it was part of the band. The band had split up over differences between each and all of us and we just sort of carried on after the band and did out own thing. It has been a good three year gap between now and then and we have evolved from then. We used to DJ under the name Simian Mobile Disco while we were in Simian and we just thought we would keep the name.

So you are now in a band and make your own music and have just released a CD. However James you also produce, most notably you produced the Arctic Monkeys second album. In which area do you feel more comfortable in? Producing other people’s music or making your own music?
James: For me personally I think the studio, whatever it may be. Whether it would be with Jess or whatever, in the studio is the bit for me.
Jess: I think that’s why we do it. We really like gigs and we like to make music. We enjoy playing but we are just essentially playing music we made all the time gigging so it is probably the studio where we feel more comfortable.
James: having said that, the gigs have been more fun than we have given them credit for. We weren’t that super keen on it but we made a system where we were flexible and it would be different every night. It has been really fun but if it came down to it I’d be with Jess and say the studio.

You seem to have been one of the bands at the vanguard of this period in music in that you have been able to seamlessly marry dance, rock and electro. So for example you have made indie kids dance. How does that make you feel?
James: I think in a way we were pretty late into electronic music. We weren’t born or brought up with house music. We are definitely from a rock background and in to all sorts of types of tunes but mainly what you would call rock music. But it has been only recently that we have begun to get excited about electronic music so I suppose it’s a good thing that we can be that stepping stone to that whole new world of um, bleeps.

There’s a cross breeding of genres so to speak recently. Has it been an exciting time for you in music-recording and producing?
Jess: Yes. It’s great. All these set genres that you used to go into the rock section and dance section in like music stores. That doesn’t fit anymore. All these genres seem old fashioned. Well the terms, they seem wrong. It’s great. I love the fact that there’s this cross pollination going on between all this different stuff. It means that people like us now, who are young are now opening up to electronic music and stuff. By mixing these things together it’s not so polarized as before. It’s not like two separate camps of dance and rock as before. Now you can get people who like pure electronic into bands like Lcd Soundsystem and from there get them into something you may call traditional rock and indie. I think it’s good.
James: I think it’s a testament to the way people listen to music these days. For example you have access to all different types of music and you just shuffle them up on your iPod. I think that has changed the way you listen to music. It definitely has for me and I think that in turn more so in the future it will change the way people make music.

So it is almost liberating now where preconceptions about music are gone and blurred?
James: Yeah. Like the way you mix the music up and be more I suppose eclectic is good. Nowadays you hear DJ’s playing a good broad range of stuff and I think that’s great.

So what should one expect from a Simian Mobile Disco gig? How does say a festival compare to a stand alone gig?
Jess: Yeah. That’s the thing with festivals. You never know what it’s going to be like ‘cause people are there for a laugh, not just to see you and you have to focus on that. You have to kind of watch people and rope people in somehow. It’s different. I think it means you can play a slightly weirder set. In a festival you have to be aware that people will walk off if you’re not holding their attention so we will be watching the crowd and if people start leaving we will be aware of that.

Is it hard trying to mix and play a song and watch the crowd, trying to gauge their reaction?
James: That’s the best bit of it really. That’s what we liked about DJing. If a song wasn’t working you could change direction and that’s a really good thing about DJing. Like in a band you generally have to play your own songs.

So you have been together for almost ten years. Have there been many good and bad times?
Jess: Oh there’s been some bad times!
James: I think to be in a partnership and travel around and go through stressful situations you have to get on with each other where in a band with other people you can kind of deflect that tension a bit onto others-not intentionally but you know…But Jess and I, we’re pretty laid back so we have gotten to a point now where we can almost know what we are going to do in a musical sense, when we’re DJing.
Jess: The whole reason we did this was as a side project for a laugh. I don’t think we would have done this otherwise, if we don’t have a laugh doing it.

So what does the future hold for Simian Mobile Disco?
James: Well we’re booked up until something like 2012! Nah, well May next year and then there’s festivals and it’s crazy. The DJing has been good. We don’t know what to expect though. It could all end up wrong either. We have a tour of America and you never know we could break up which is what happened to Simian!

Really? How?
James: We had an argument in a fish restaurant in Texas. That’s how Simian ended!

Conor O'Neill is a winetaster and former Buenos Airen, studying History and Politics in Trinity.
Email this author | All posts by Conor ONeill

Similar Posts