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Scroobius Pip is somewhat of a musical chameleon, starting off working alongside DJ Dan Le Sac on spoken word hip-hop and emigrating over to the rock side of the spectrum for work on his second album Distraction Pieces.
After a break of performing with Dan the duo have recently paired up on-stage to perform their set from the 2008 collaborative album Angels, much to fans’ delight.
Scroobius Pip performed two sets at Kendal Calling this year so Purple Revolver cornered the Most Wanted Man for an eight-minute grilling.
PR: How are you feeling about your return to Kendal and playing two live sets?
SP: Good, excited, me and Dan haven’t done a show together for a while. The Main Stage show with the band is the biggest one that we have ever done, my Distraction Pieces, both of them are exciting. Yeah it’s just a weekend of mayhem, because I’ve got tonnes of shows, yeah it will be good.
PR: How different is it playing without Dan Le Sac?
SP: It’s very different, but basically I’ve done the last year touring with the band, so that what I’m more used to, I’m used to having a drummer and guitarist on-stage. But me and Dan have been doing it for five years or so. We had our first show together again a few months again and yeah it was easy it just clicked back into that mode. It was really good fun, again it was all the songs that we touring for five years or so, and we’ve had a lot of time off from touring, so it was good to get back to it and re-energise. So today will be good.
PR: On-stage you look completely focused, how do you psyche yourself up?
SP: All that focus is completely fictional and I have to really concentrate. I’ll be thinking, I’ll be saying loads of words, but because I’m so used to saying them all I’ll be thinking ‘what shall I say after this song, what shall I say in between, how shall I introduce the next song, I wonder what time I’ll be going and doing…’.
I have to really reel myself in at times to make sure that I don’t go off-topic and off-subject. It’s just always good fun. A lot of people say , how does it feel to play the same songs for so long and over different festivals? But, it’s the crowd which are always different, so that’s what makes it exciting.
So that’s why there will be of lot on focus on what’s going on out there. It’s not just we’re playing these songs for the thousandth time, it doesn’t feel like that because we’ve never played them to this collection of people.
PR: Your songs are extremely honest, how important do you think it is to be honest as an artist?
SP: It’s important to me, but I don’t think everyone has to, but again a lot of people expect me to think every hip-hop or every artist should be tackling harsh subjects. I think there is room for everything, it’s just personally when I write, that’s what excites me, I find it interesting delving into interesting things.
Because I’m not a singer I literally just go up there and speak, I’ve never been someone who’s in love with their own voice, so if I get up there, I want to have something to say, or something that is going to interest me, rather than just, I need to talk ,I need to be on the mic, it’s not that kind of thing.
PR: What do you want people to take away from your gig today?
SP: I want them to go home and have a really good time, that’s the main focus. In both sets there are a lot of songs that have some serious subjects, but you’re at a festival, the first thing is that you should be enjoying it and having a good time, you shouldn’t feel like you are being lectured.
Hopefully some people will pick up on lyrics or certain subjects and go away and debate things around a campfire later. The main focus is that people go away having really enjoyed it feeling sweaty and horrible.