Two words sum up the future sound of indie. SOUTH CENTRAL. This band will leave you breathless. Not just for the way they blur the boundaries of dance, indie and electro. But because you’ll be dancing so much that you’re verging on becoming delirious. Before their gig supporting Does It Offend You, Yeah? Cass Gowing caught up with Rob, Keith and Chris to see why life is so good in the hood for South Central.
Hey guys, first of all can you introduce yourself and your role in the band.
C: I’m Chris and I play bass.
K: I’m Keith and I do keyboards and electronics.
R: And I’m Rob, I’m the vocalist and keyboardist.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with South Central, can you sum up who you are and what sound you’ve got?
R: Our sound is indie/dance/electro kinda stuff. Erm… It’s banging stuff. [laughs]
C: [Whilst laughing] Banging?
R: Yeah. It’s the new dance thing I think, which is obviously a mix of rock, indie and dance. It’s a new thing that’s growing. Basically it’s Rob, Keith and Chris and then there’s Nicoli on drums and Brendan on guitars. And me and Keith DJ and produce the music.
K: We like to call our music Rocktronicana. Rocktronic. We just invented this word.
Fantastic, I was about to ask what music genre you think you fall under.
K: That is it. We’re ahead of the game.
Where did the idea come from to mix a live band and DJing?
K: When we play live, it’s not really mixing the two together. I play keyboard and I manipulate all of Rob’s vocals and his keyboard, some of the drums here and there, my keyboard and some extra stuff. We don’t really DJ; by playing a track or other people’s music. Everything is done live and that’s how we like it to be. It’s live music. It’s important for us that everything is live.
What are your musical influences?
K: Do you have about 24hours left? Wel,l we can start with Kraftwerk and Siouxsie & The Banshees.
R: The Fall, Dead Can Dance… Crystal Castles!
C: Currently I like Crystal Castles and Partyshank
R: He likes the singer of Crystal Castles
Have you got a bit of a thing for Alice?
C: Alice, yeah, she’ll be my wife one day. She needs a stable man in her life.
How has touring with Does It Offend You, Yeah? been so far?
K: It has been wicked. We just came from Brighton yesterday. It was mad. The moshpit was the biggest moshpit ever. I was seeing people from the back of the venue running into the moshpit and back out again.
R: That moshpit was as big as when we played Japan.
Japan?
R: Yeah when we were in Japan there was a massive moshpit as well and that was, I think it was equal.
It’s quite a small venue tonight; do you prefer more intimate venues?
R: Yes. Well we’re saying yes, it’s not like we have big, big, big gigs.
[laughs]
Yeah, I like how you dropped in that you played Japan.
R: When we played it there was about five thousand people. But when we played Trans-Musica in France that was probably the biggest gig, about twenty thousand. That was really good.
K: The Mayor asked us to play a French track at the end.
Where are you from Rob and Keith? You have quite unusual accents.
R: We’re Maltese.
Did you know each other then move to Brighton together?
R: I moved to Brighton 15 years ago.
What can we expect from the live show tonight?
R: Big noise, big drums, big sounds, new sounds, good melodies. No slow records.
K: Something to dance to.
Your album ‘The Owl of Minerva’ is due to be released on 3rd November, what can we expect from that?
K: It’s a collection of our singles from the past two years which were only released on vinyl. We’re working on the debut album. I think you heard a track from the album in the sound check. It’s looking good. It’s coming along nicely. It’ll be out next year definitely, probably February, March time. It’ll be coming out via the record label which is Egregore.
How long have you been with them, I thought that you were an unsigned band?
K: It’s our own record label.
DIY bands are quite popular at the minute, with lots of bands choosing to create their own record labels. Why do you think that is?
R: Basically, we want to evolve naturally. It’s not that we don’t wanna get signed, but we want to be able to evolve naturally without being told what to do. Because that way you can become the best you can be. We do want to get signed but we want it to be on our terms as much as possible.
Can you explain the title of the album?
K: It comes from Hegel, a philosopher. Basically, you have to understand the past so that you know where you are going. There’s more to it but people don’t need to know it, they can search it for themselves.
R: Basically, we can look at our past to predict what we’re going to do in the future.
Do you prefer to do remixes or your own material?
K: It depends. Obviously, we like to do our own material but when a good remix comes along… We’re very selective by the way, we don’t just do anything. If something interesting comes along, we’ll look at it not once or twice, but until we’re sure we want to do it. For example, with The Wombats, obviously there was a relationship there because we did a tour with them. We liked the song as well.
R: We like them as guys too. It’s funny because I was thinking about that, in interviews they say “But you’re much cooler than The Wombats” [laughs]
But we see it in a different way. You see the music being played but because we’re backstage we see how hard they work. You automatically become respectful of them and like their music for who they are and how hard they work.
How did the Bacardi advert come about?
K: We pitched for the advert and they really liked it. It’s like being signed without being signed, it means we can afford to tour.
R: Obviously we got quite good money for the advert. Some people would say “Oh you’re sell-outs” but if they were in our place; where we don’t want to get signed but wanna work and tour, so we would rather get the money from an advertising company. Because we aren’t signed, we own the track so the record company doesn’t take 80% of the money. It came about because they like South Central, weirdly enough. [Laughs] You always think these big guys who are the head of Bacardi would like Celine Dion or something like that. But they liked the sound. They liked ‘Crystalling’, one of the tracks on the CD. From ‘Crystalling’ we then did the track ‘Aeon’ which is on the advert.
K: We were listening to a lot of Interpol then, so a lot of the guitar parts are influenced by that. It worked quite well actually.
R: You have to see it in the way of: either sign to a label and sell all of your tracks for four years and you don’t own anything or sell one track and get the same money.
What are your views on the New Rave scene?
C: That’s a tough one, it depends what you see New Rave as, lots of bands get chucked in there, and some bands don’t deserve to be there. It’s hard to work out whether the category is good or bad. I like a lot of the music. With Hadouken!, we really liked their first song ‘That Boy, That Girl’, but then they changed.
R: It’s because they didn’t get an advert like us. [Laughs]
C: So if New Rave is them, then no.
R: I think New Rave started with The Klaxons and then it evolved. I don’t think it really exists anymore, in my head anyway.
What do you think of the Klaxons? I remember listening to all their demos and really liking them. Then when they released their album a year later, I was shocked at the difference.
K: We liked it so much at the beginning, that we actually did a bootleg.
There was some controversy concerning your bootleg of The Klaxons’ song ‘Bouncer’, what happened?
K: We listened to this band on Myspace and thought Jesus, this is really fresh. We were trying to fund this band by doing dance remixes of other bands. We released ‘The Bouncer’, before we even called ourselves South Central. They weren’t very happy at all. By the time the bootleg came out, they got signed to a major label. And James sent us this massive email; they weren’t very happy and called us cunts.
You are renowned to have had a £18 budget for the ‘Nothing Can Go Wrong’ music video. What did you spend £18 on?
K: Have you seen the video?
Yes.
K: The 3D glasses? £18 went on them. Everything else was for free.
Who decided on the ‘black hoods’ concept?
K: It’s just a concept we use because we don’t want to have our faces forward. Our music is what’s important. If you see our artwork, our music, our lyrics, there’s a lot of meaning to it. The logo means something as well. We don’t think that our faces or who we are should have anything to do with the music.
What’s your overall view of the music industry at the moment?
K: It’s in trouble.
R: It’s in big trouble. That’s another reason why we don’t want to get signed because all the big companies around us are crumbling. Can you imagine if you get signed, this A&R person really likes what you’re doing and you get signed for three albums? Then a month later he gets sacked. A new A&R person comes along but he doesn’t really like your music and you’re signed.
You’re fucked basically.
R: Exactly. That’s happening to a lot of bands. Loads of bands, loads of bands.
K: You get stuck, artistically. That’s the worse thing that can happen.
R: But the live thing now, because of the internet, is increasing. The companies are promoting their bands but with the internet, if you are a good band and you’ve got a good sound then people find out about you without being promoted.
What do you think about Myspace?
K: We started on Myspace.
When was that? 2006?
K: I think so.
R: End of 2006.
K: We found Klaxons on that. It’s good; it’s a good connection, a community of music. It lets you know what’s happening around.
What is your proudest career moment to date?
K: This might sound weird, but for me, when we supported Gary Numan. We did a track with Gary Numan, then we supported him as well. I used to listen to him when I was five, six years old. That was a good one.
C: For me, playing in Japan.
R: That was amazing.
C: That was my career goal, now I’ve got to think of a new one.
R: I think Trans-Musica in France was a good festival for us in December. That was my proudest moment. But I think there’s going to be another one next year.
What do you still have left to achieve?
R: Loads, absolutely loads.
K: This one, it’s probably not going to happen: we’ll remix Kraftwerk with The Fall vocal; Mark E Smith’s vocals on top. It’s not gonna happen but at least we’ll have something to work towards.
Thanks very much for your time guys, have a great show tonight.
Words by Cass Gowing
Ra-Re Valverde may be busy wowing crowds with her music, but she still found time to speak to Scene Slut while she was on the road.
Your debut album ‘A Beautiful Mess’ is about to be released, how are you feeling?
I am excited about the release of this CD and it’s been out for a little while now. Honestly, it’s like seeing my baby come to life after working on the project for almost 2 years.
What can we expect to hear on the album?
It’s very left of what I think most people would expect from me based on my background of working with certain artists. I know they will be a little surprised at my approach, but will appreciate it and rock to it nonetheless. For those who are not so familiar with me at all, they can expect soul music with ambient edges – I refer to the overall sound as “space soul”.
Are you pleased with the feedback you’ve had from the album so far?
Yes, definitely. It’s funny because since the release, I have been on tour with Jill Scott and have not really had the time to promote the CD as planned, but in spite of the lack of full on promotion behind this project, I have been getting major feedback from all parts of the world. I appreciate that aspect because it’s coming right from the people and its genuine, minus the hype. It’s kind of how I wanted it work out subconsciously – and the response has been amazing.
Did you enjoy the writing and recording experience?
Of course, at times it would get a bit gruelling, when you go through the phases of writers block, but its been a freeing experience. For the most part, the CD was recorded in my home studio between the hours of 1-7am… insomnia!
I love to write and arrange, that’s the best part of the process. Recording, not as much because I find sometimes you get so caught up in perfecting instead of just going with the feeling, so I had to learn to let go and just let emotions take over.
Did you take anything from the experience – was it therapeutic?
Definitely, I learned to trust my ear a little more, and experiment much more than I have in the past, both lyrically, and melodically.
You also co-produced the album, was that an awarding experience?
Yes, speaking of experimenting, I pretty much taught myself how to use certain programs (protools, etc.) and start the process from scratch, which was a first for me because I am so used to working with producers when it came to the music side. Though, I still had some collaborators on ‘A Beautiful Mess’ a big part of it was solo, and I am very proud of that.
For those that haven’t heard your music, how would you describe it?
“Space Soul” is what I like to call it. I use that term only because I felt really outside of myself while recording and writing this project. I wanted to surprise myself first and get out of my own comfort zone. Especially, being a professional background singer for some amazing artists, you get used to the realm of everything being somewhat structured vocally and certain blends and sounding pretty overall. I did not want my own CD to follow any form other that what happened “in the moment”. It had to feel brand new to me first before presenting it to the world.
Who are your musical influences?
I have so many, but as of late I have been listening to a lot of RadioHead, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Louis Armstrong, Bobby McFerrin, John Lee Hooker, Bilal, to name a few. My all time musical influence is Prince.
You’ve worked with huge artists such as Jennifer Lopez and Jill Scott, why did you decide to step out on your own?
It had been a long time coming and I owed it to myself to take the chance. I was fearful at first, scared to put myself out there and found many things that helped me delay the process of stepping out on my own. I used to manage other artists knowing damn well I had something to say also. I just sat down one day and started writing and recording with no pretence other than to see what happens and it worked out as I always new deep down that it would. Fear is a hell of a drug!
Is it difficult to find a balance between working on your own material and writing and singing for others?
Not at all, I enjoy being involved in music on each and every level. I don’t approach it that way, because I have been in a position in the past where I had to put music down for a second to pay the bills and it was not a good place to be. I remember a point where I had a desk job and everyday on the way up the elevator to my job, I would cry because I did not want to be there and it hurt my spirit, really and I promised myself that I would do whatever I had to do to not feel that way again. It’s all about balance and sometimes we have to make sacrifices. So anything having to do with music is where I need to be and I count it all as being creative and working on my overall craft. I also think most indeed artists will tell you to keep you day job for the sake of funding your own goals and it just so happens that my day job is singing. It also depends on who your working with, and I have been very fortunate to work with artists who respect my craft and aren’t afraid to share the platform. Artists like Rahsaan and Jill, Lalah Hathaway and Trina Broussard to name a few, and I take bits and pieces from each experience.
You’ve studied at prestigious music schools, do you think that experience has helped you or have you just been lucky?
A little bit of both, lucky because I met and was influenced by some great people and fellow musicians along the way. I think anyone who went to a school like Berklee College of Music will tell you that the experience is what you make of it. By that I mean really being interactive in learning about all kinds of music and watching how people from all walks of life have this one common thread. It was amazing and I would do it all over again, minus the tuition!
You’ve just played shows in mainland Europe, how did the shows go?
I did, opening up for Rahsaan Patterson at the Jazz Café in London and at the L’Opus Café’ in Paris. I also did some live Radio spots w/ BBC’s 1Xtra Radio.
How was your London show?
It was great, good energy and positive feedback. It felt really good to be performing there on my own cause I had been there a couple of times with other artists and it was next level to be there performing my own songs and getting a high reaction from the people.
Do you notice a difference between the crowds in small and large cities? Are the crowds in London, LA etc harder to please, more jaded?
I find that in Europe as a whole, the crowds come ready to party regardless. They are attentive and listening and taking it all in. It’s clear that they just appreciate good quality music and live instrumentation. It’s crazy because my first trip to London years ago was for a Jazz Café show and I never forget paying extra close attention to the music that the DJ was spinning. So diverse, old school, new age, bass and drum, etc. Stuff I had never even heard of and I consider myself to be knowledgeable, or at least try, when it comes to music. I was impressed and a little ashamed, like I need to step my music research game up!
I can appreciate people who have genuine love for all kinds of music and they come out to support it.
What’s your overall view of the music industry?
I think the mainstream music outlets still have some major work to do in terms of what they choose to highlight in music. I’m all for balance and I get a little tired of just hearing one thing, one message, especially when it comes to black music, hip hop etc. Being a 80’s kid I grew up in a time when hip hop was so diverse with a little something for everybody. On the flip side in the age of the Internet, I am so happy that we as artists and consumers have a plethora of choices within our reach and we are turning the tables on how the industry operates now. They are looking to consumers for direction and its s about time that the consumer, and the artist have a voice. I used to work at a few major labels after I graduated so I know both sides of the coin and one of the main things that turned me off was the fact the artists were usually stifled creatively for the sake of producing “hot items” for the moment. There’s no longevity in that. Especially in black music, it is often boxed and one-sided in terms of which artists and which messages are getting major shine. I think it can only get better though, and these days, you don’t really even have to be signed to have success, just very patient, persistent and clever. It depends on what you want as the artists, but the doors have opened in so many areas, that were not available to us before.
What are you views on artists releasing download only material?
I get it and understand the strategy behind it as an indie artist, it cuts the costs of getting actual CD's produced and I can’t tell you the last time I actually purchased a hard CD unless it was a jazz box set. It’s a new day and people want instant gratification.
When it comes to buying music do you prefer to download or have the hardcopy?
It depends on what it is honestly, if it’s a classic I’d prefer to have the artwork, but for new music, it’s all on my hard drive baby!
Luke Wilson or Owen Wilson?
I love this question! – Owen Wilson (who the hell is Luke Wilson?) lol… Oh 90210, right?
What is your proudest career moment to date?
In LA with Jill at the House of Blues, we had a series of shows, and this particular night I met Prince and Stevie Wonder within a ten-minute span. I was so caught up that it wasn’t until later that I realized I greeted Prince with one shoe on and one off. Jill still makes fun of my reaction, but it was totally unexpected and amazing to meet them both on the same night. We even sang with Stevie – it was crazy!!!!!
What do you still have left to achieve?
Everything – I have visions on a daily! I also have A.D.D. so my goals shift often. I just believe in constantly creating whether through music or photography, or just writing in general. I know that I am on the right path though because it has been flowing so far and I give GOD the glory for that. I still wonder sometimes how most things happened for me, but I claim it as my blessings. More music, love a little harder, and be bolder when it comes to me living in the moment. The worst things to have are regrets and I know my story has already been written; I’m just taking each day to work out my lines….
What can we expect to see from you over the next year?
A new CD I am working on as we speak entitled S.H.E., some amazing collaborations, and some good music that many people will relate to. I am on a crazy, emotional, beautiful journey right now and its fine.
Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us, we hope to see you soon.
How’s the tour going so far?