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Sneaker Pimps

Sneaker Pimps' American Soft Shoe(from Addicted to Noise)

Pimps Up the Volume(from Hits magazine)

Pimpin' Ain't Easy(from Option Magazine)

Sneaker Pimps(from Raygun)

Pimpin' Ain't Easy(from Fix magazine)

Electronica's Softer Side

Roger Morton interviews the Sneaker Pimps in Dayton Confused!(from NME)
 
 
 
 

Sneaker Pimps

One pop act that's following the lead of bands like Lush and Garbage is the Sneaker Pimps, who are already wooing American audiences with their trip hop sound. Ben Snyder caught up with them for this FC Groove Report. The perks of rock stardom are by now cliche, but that doesn't mean a little band from England doesn't appreciate them. "Wesley Snipes came to one of our gigs," says lead singer Kelli Dayton. "Oh, and the Spice Girls ripped my shirt off," adds guitarist Liam Howe. "I was wearing a shirt with kind of pop off buttons...and they just ripped it off my back. I was peeled like a banana." That kind of attention is something a lot of bands only dream about. It all started with "Six Underground," off their Virgin Records debut, "Becoming X. "The band creates their eclectic sound with the best of sci-fi, dance; just about anything they can find to sample from. "We have a huge amount of old, trashy records," says Howe. "But then to not use them on stage because you enter that hip hop thing -- even though we love hip hop -- we're were not hip hop. So it would be patronizing to kind of be too, you know...it's pretty difficult; I can't scratch to save my life. "The Sneaker Pimps love vintage running shoes -- just one reason they chose their name. But it was actually Beastie Boy Mike D who coined the phrase after someone the band hired for just that purpose. "He [Mike D] sends them around New York...finding old school trainers and, of course, he's called their sneaker pimp," explains Howe. "And that's what I was doing this morning; going around and buying old trainers." On the last leg of a three-month promotional tour, the Sneaker Pimps aren't swayed by the hype that can surround a major label debut. "I think basically as a performer on the road you live for that hour or half hour when you're on stage," concludes Dayton. "And that's what you're basically geared towards."
 
 

Sneaker Pimps' American Soft Shoe

If it's all about timing, then the British

trio the Sneaker Pimps'll be huge.

Their first US tour came at a time when

Americans are ready to embrace new sounds.

Well, it's not just about timing.

Luckily, the Pimps have talent, too.

By Clare Kleinedler

Trip-hop and ambient dance music has finally hit America's shores an entire year after the genre made a name for itself in the UK. Following in the footsteps of mellow-groovers Tricky and Massive Attack, the Sneaker Pimps are geared up and ready to make some waves here in the US.

It's a beautiful sunny afternoon in San Francisco, and the Pimps' (an affectionate abbreviation used by their fans) singer Kelli Dayton is basking in the warmth of the poolside rays at the infamous rock-star haunt, the Phoenix Hotel. Although her voice is a bit hoarse from the previous night's gig, Dayton is in good spirits. The tour the band is currently doing is their first stint in the States, and so far it has been an incredible success.

"It's been great. We really couldn't believe it," says the Tinkerbell-sized Dayton. "So many British bands that have come here have been turned away, but it seems that people are really happy that we're here. It really is unbelievable."

The Sneaker Pimps have come at just the right time. Sick of the generic pop styles that dominate the charts, Americans seem to be opening up to different genres, as is evident from the growing popularity of techno and ambient music.

"I think it's the time for this kind of music to happen in America," says Dayton. "Although I'm the first person to dive into the mosh pit for Sonic Youth, I think [people] have progressed into the appreciation of actual music and they're being a bit calmer about the whole thing and taking it easy."

Dayton and her cohorts, keyboardist Liam Howe and guitarist Chris Corner, have perfected the art of "taking things easy" with their debut album, Becoming X (Virgin Records). Co-produced by Flood (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey), the record is a mix of dream-like melodies and slow rhythms. Although a lot of similar trip-hop music has been labeled as "repetitive," Dayton's honey-glazed vocals give the tracks an uplift. "6 Underground," the first single, blends a surreal electronic melody with Dayton's strong vocals. "Low Place Like Home" stays very much in the trip-hop realm with synths and a steady drum beat, while "Post-Modern Sleeze" explores the straight-up blues guitar aspect of the band. The Pimps' heavy emphasis on clean piano chords also distinguishes their sound from many of their peers.

The bandmembers' varied musical tastes come through in the music. While Dayton cites The Cramps, Sonic Youth and the Pixies as influences, Corner and Howe would rather listen to artists such as Nick Drake, Scott Walker, Afrika Bambaata and Shirley Bassey. While their musical likes and dislikes is the topic of many arguments, they all agree it is the main source of inspiration behind the Sneaker Pimps' sound.

"We're always sort of fighting, so we come up with good results," says Corner.

So it doesn't come as a surprise that the Sneaker Pimps came together because each felt the need to "help each other improve," according to Howe. Back in the early '90s, Howe and Corner played together as F.R.I.S.K., pushing their musical concoctions on unsuspecting club-goers in London. F.R.I.S.K. eventually manifested into Line Of Flight, another DJ outfit that saw the release of one EP in September of 1993. Frustrated with the incognito lifestyle of being DJs, the two decided to embark on a different kind of project.

"We had started off in an almost hobby mentality because we didn't have any pretensions to become rock stars, and I suppose at some point we changed our minds," says Howe. "We thought, 'Enough of this anonymous dance music stuff! Let's make a band.' We wanted the longevity and poignancy of songwriting."

Dayton was busy gigging around London singing with her band, Lumieres. Howe and Corner happened to see one of her gigs, and after Dayton expressed admiration for their band, the three formed the Pimps. Shortly after, the trio were signed and in the studio laying down tracks for the debut.

According to Corner, the songwriting process remains "traditional" even for a band like theirs. The two start off with basic guitar chords and go from there. But the road from the bare-bones track to the finished product is an extremely complicated journey.

"We do things in quite a collaborative sense and the excitement of doing it is that everyone, by nature of being different, is pulling things in different directions," says Howe. "The excitement is getting a hybrid which is functional, or actually makes sense, even though it contains contradictions within it. With your average rock bands, it's like, 'Oh, let's write a ballad' or 'Let's write a song about poverty or something.' It seems like a very simple, one-dimensional affair. But we make it our business to be non-single faceted, to the point of confusion or irritation."

Confusion and irritation, according to Howe, is also influential to the lyrics.

"Bitterness is a main influence. It's like making a film or writing a book... most of it is social commentary. You have to be sufficiently motivated or upset with the world in order to want to make something about it. Discontent, anger or jealousy... there are a lot of emotions that promote that kind of social critique."

Trip-hop has been criticized for being "too dark" and "boring." Even though the UK initially embraced the genre, the term 'trip-hop' has become a dirty word, according to Howe. Although the band brush off the criticism, Dayton finds it a bit frustrating.

"If people think that it's boring, then that's their opinion. As long as they don't say 'that kind' of music when they talk about it. There is no 'kind' of record. That's when we stop listening... when people say things like, 'Well, I'm not into that kind of music so I won't listen to that band.'"

The feeling at tonight's gig at Bimbo's in San Francisco is not at all doom and gloom. The place is packed, and the atmosphere is the perfect setting for the Sneaker Pimps. The tables are glowing with the soft light of candles and the iridescent chandeliers reflect the maroon colors of the plush carpet below. The Pimps take the stage, and immediately the crowd quiet down and pay close attention. Dayton, wearing a short black wig and striking eye makeup, croons to the audience as she seductively slithers around the stage. The low thuds of the bass and eerie sounds of the keyboards seep out of the speakers that hang down from the ceiling, creating the quintessential Sneaker Pimps experience.

"People really seemed curious about us," says Dayton, elated over the success of the gig. "Everything just came together...that's when you get a really special gig, I think. Everyone is really excited.
 
 

HITS magazine

March 10, 1997

PIMPS UP THE VOLUME

Time to trip through the jungle with Sneaker Pimps' Liam Howe and Kelli Dayton

by Bruce Britt

The latest in what appears to be an inexhaustible supply of innovative alternative dance acts, Sneaker Pimps seem destined to take their place among Virgin Records' crowded staple of pioneering bands. The label that championed seminal techno/club acts like Human League, Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark, Soul II Soul and Massive Attack is now throwing its considerable promotional weight behind Sneaker Pimps, a British group whose creepy electronica recalls their Virgin predecessors, not to mention Tricky and the rest of the burgeoning London club music scene.

The irony of this situation is not lost on Sneaker Pimps' three principal members. Eager and willing to uphold the Virgin tradition, the band admits they want to broaden techno music's horizons. If effusive critical response is any indication, Sneaker Pimps have accomplished their goal. The band's debut album, "Becoming X," combines eerie B-movie melodies with mesmerizing trip-hop rhythms. Liam Howe's horrowshow keyboards and Chris Corner's mad scientist guitars contrast perfectly with Kelli Dayton's cooing, come-hither vocals.

As if to underscore their devotion to these forebears, Sneaker Pimps recruited Soul II Soul co-conspirator Nellee Hooper to remix their "6 Underground." But will Sneaker Pimps surface and fade just as quickly as their dance-pop heroes? To get answers to these and other vexing questions, HITS' own two-left footed Bruce "Hail" Britt "Ania" recently visited Virgin Records' Beverly Hills offices to chat up Howe and Dayton.

THERE'S DEFINITELY A SEEDY SEXUALITY TO YOUR MUSIC.

LIAM HOWE: I'm actually glad you said that. Yes, it's quite macabre, sexy and even dirty in places, which has nothing to do with me. It's purposefully connecting to the darker side of sexuality and the difficulties of modern sexuality - the whole fear of sex in the '90s. Music needs to have raw sexuality.

THERE'S ALSO A SORT OF CREEPY ELEMENT.

HOWE: We've done a few mixes using real deep, John Carpenter-like string sounds, with the dramatic cellos grinding away in the background. The whole comedy/horror thing is appealing to me.

I like to think the album has a B-movie feel. The last tune on the album, "How Do," is a cover tune from an old 1973 British horror film called "The Wicker Man." The song actually features a sample from the film with Britt Ekland. We had to ring her up to get permission to use her voice. I've actually got the piece of paper she signed giving us permission to use it.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE "BECOMING X"?

HOWE: We've been going for a year-and-a-half now and I haven't come up with a satisfactory definition. That should be one of the first things you think about when you start a band - what kind of music are we making? In a funny way it demonstrates how we actually survive as musicians. Our music relies totally upon antagonistic definitions. We're influenced by punk and folk. Now most people would say those two forms are fifty feet away from each other categorically, and we see no harm in throwing together diverse influences into one song. The problem with doing that is, when you attempt to define the music, you get into big trouble. You end up naming all the different departments in the records shop.

Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, we'll be defined posthumously. We're kind of living in a definition-obsessed culture and if we wait and see, maybe some decent terms will come out for this kind of music.

KELLI, COMING FROM A ROCK BACKGROUND, WHAT WAS YOUR INITIAL IMPRESSION OF SNEAKER PIMPS?

KELLI DAYTON: I had never worked with samples and computers before. I'd always liked the live side of things. I had a fixed image of what computers were like. At first, I thought, this is too tame, too mellow for me. But Liam and Chris took it a bit further. They were writing really great songs. They weren't just making up faceless melodies. I started thinking what I would do with a sampler. Once I started thinking that way, all these possibilities came floating in. So at first I felt fear, followed by this confusion, which mutated into excitement.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE COMPARISIONS TO TRICKY?

DAYTON: We've been compared with so many people, so I guess it's the way people sort of relate. That's the way the wold is. What people say doesn't affect me. What we do is make music, and what other people think is kind of superficial.

HOWE: To be honest, we do have a certain shared heritage. I can't deny that [Massive Attack's] "Blue Lines" is one of my favorite albums, a huge influence. The Portishead album was a huge influence as well. So we've certainly paid our dues to those influences, but we've also made a distinct effort to be a pop group, where the others still tend to be more introspective, deprecating material.

Tricky captures that self-pity and absolute despair that comes with living in a modern world. But we steer in a different way. We look at despair in an almost cynical, comical way. We acknowledge that we come from the British Massive Attack/Tricky school, but at the same time we're just as excited about Sonic Youth and alternative pop.

WHAT DID YOU AND CHRIS LIKE ABOUT KELLI"S VOICE?

HOWE: Kelli's very graphic when it comes to interpreting the lyrics. She's fantastic at making up her own images for the songs. She tends to interpret everything in this really strong sexual fashion.

DAYTON: When I sing, I've got a lot of visual imagery going on. It all intermingles with my voice. Since I started working with Sneaker Pimps I think a lot more about the way I sing, because a lot of times it's someone else's words. Being in this band gives me the chance to sing seriously, I'm not expressing inner feelings.

IF TRIP-HOP BANDS LIKE YOURSELVES ARE TO SUCCEED THEY'LL NEED TO BE DRIVEN BY STRONG IMAGE AND PERSONALITIES.

HOWE: That's one of the reasons we stopped playing dance music - it became increasing irritating being anonymous and faceless. We wanted to be in a pop band with a profile, to be on the cover of magazines, and all those childish things everyone dreams of. To be honest, that was one of our motivations.

If people can link a product to an image, then the music becomes stronger. In this post-modern era, it does come down to clothes and haircuts, and to ignore that is being foolish and naive. It's all part of the gambit in pop music to be visual.

Option magazine

March - April 1997

Sneaker Pimps

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

by James Sullivan

SNEAKER PIMPS FOUNDERS Liam Howe and Chris Corner started their careers cutting instrumental acid jazz and trip-hop tracks on the underground British dance scene. But they always wanted to be pop stars.

"We would never reach further than a few thousand singles, so we had no real effect on the culture," says Howe, 25, of the duo's early work. "We knew we had to find a singer. A huge emotional gateway can open when you start to sing words."

Before they'd even begun auditions, the duo stumbled on Kelli Dayton, 22, fronting a pop-punk band in a Birmingham pub. "She is someone who references our early-80's past," says Howe, speaking from a studio in Spain where he's producing tracks for Neneh Cherry. "All those really spiky, English, anarchic punk-electro bands. We didn't come from blues or soul, as did a lot of bands of our ilk. We wanted someone with attitude, with enough bite to cut through the chaff."

Layering Dayton's cooing vocals over a beat-driven synth soundscape, the Sneaker Pimps' debut Becoming X (Virgin) is a lush, pop-noir delight. From the ethereal single "6 Underground" and the booming rock textures of "Low Place," to deliciously sinister tracks like "Tesko Suicide" and "Postmodern Sleaze." Becoming X offers some of the most polished and eclectic sounds to emerge from the electronic underground.

Adding a bassist and a drummer to augment their live act, the band recently embarked on its first U.S. tour. But the Sneaker Pimps are clearly most at home in the recording studio. "The sound just worked from day one," says Dayton. "We're a bit of everything really,. There's an element of trip-hop in there, mostly because of the production. But there's also an element of punk, and there's an element of pop."

Still, making pop and becoming pop stars can be two different things. "We haven't exactly conquered England," Dayton admits. "And that's OK."
 
 

RAYGUN

March 1997

Sneaker Pimps

by Aidin Vaziri

Liam Howe leans forward in his chair and begins to consider the Sneaker Pimps' basic dichotomy. As his eyes search the dark and cluttered conference room of London's One Little Indian office, he eventually articulates the difficult position his band occupies.

"As an artist, you have an obligation to immerse yourself in popular culture and to be a part of the thing you're supposed to be criticizing," the keyboardist says. "If we're going to make music about the confusion of the 90's, the worst thing we could do is stay in an ivory tower and have no connection with the way that popular culture is working. It's really important to be within the system."

Sneaker Pimps' debut album, Becoming X, has been described as both one of the most seductive offerings to roll off the atmospheric-electronic UK assembly line and as one of the most flagrantly derivative byproducts of the trip-hop epidemic. It has also been suggested that the group's sassy first single, "6 Underground," opened the gates for a flood of soundalike bands, ranging from Morcheeba to Baby Fox.

More importantly, perhaps, the Sneaker Pimps - a London-based trio that includes singer Kelli Dayton and guitarist Chris Corner - is not all about appearances. While the group's music may draw from the same claustrophobic song structures, eerie movie soundtrack textures and languid hip-hop rhythms that have become cornerstones of the modern urban underground sound, its creators have paid remarkable attention to pursuing a higher purpose.

"We came together in an odd way, and decided early on that we would do whatever we wanted to do," says Dayton. Suffering from a bad hangover, she defends her band's hybrid identity. "It was a very natural thing. We all have really different backgrounds. We have different ideas, and none of us are willing to compromise to the point where our individual musical tastes get pushed away. So we decided to push on and argue musically, and take the best of each of us as far as we can."

"It's always a dilemma, because I've always been excited about how contemporary culture changes," Howe says. "At the same time, I love timeless things. The Sneaker Pimp way is somewhat constrictional, because it's going for timeless songs, but at the same time wanting very fashionable, genre-specific sounds. You'll listen to our album and you'll be able to place it within five years of history, it's definitely about 90's living. If we made it sound totally timeless, then it would lose a lot of its power; it would just be another songwriter harping away on his guitar.

"That was one of the problems," he continues. "If you accept contemporary production of genres or trends, you put yourself up for being cast aside. Sometimes, if you produce things in a contemporary way, you risk losing the song beneath the surface. But it's important for us to be part of what's happening, because you can't really criticize what's happening unless you are a part of it. The first thing we ever thought about before we started the project was that we wanted to make this a songwriter's project. We wanted to be able to listen to the album in 10 years time and go, 'These were great songs.' So the group's sound is basically just a contemporary vessel for songwriter's."

Howe began collaborating with Corner in 1992, first under the name F.R.I.S.K. and then later as Line Of Flight. Dayton had been in bands around Birmingham since the age of 16. She was discovered singing in a pub by the songwriters, lured into the fold and then shot into the spotlight. The name Sneaker Pimps was adopted from a catch-phrase sputtered out by Beastie Boy Mike D, who used the term to describe a friend he paid to search for hard-to-find gym shoes. In the months before Becoming X was released in the UK, the group enjoyed chart success with the seductive "6 Underground" and the frenzied "Tesko Suicide" singles, both unrepentantly trendy slices of modern electronic pop bliss.

"Liam and Chris are so talented, I couldn't believe it when I first met them," Dayton says. "I'm used to working with people who just bashed away on three chords. I love that side about them."

"Funnily enough, if we would have done a folk version of the record, we would have got people talking more about what really mattered to us." Howe says. "We've always written songs on an acoustic guitar and everything after that point is pushing it as far as we can, which is important. We understand the excitement of dance music and DJ culture, so we pushed it that way on purpose. But it's caused a strange backwards effect, because people think it sounds good, therefore the songs can't be that good. The whole point was to make great songs which sounded good, which is not a difficult concept. The purpose was to make the two stand together; to me it represents the bridge between indie and dance music. It's a game which is really easy to fail at, but the goal is really big. If you succeed, you've really won something."

FIX magazine

February 1997

The Sneaker Pimps

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

by Simon Rust Lamb

Not everyone recognizes it; most people don't even realize that any possible correlation could exist. Emotion, sex and mass murder intricately blend together in the mind of at least one woman. S&M didn't cut it. Kelli Dayton spent her youth writing songs about the strange ties of mass murder and love. Love and chainsaw massacre sounded right. Now, she's reworking those old massacre ballads into the B-side tracks for her new band, the Sneaker Pimps. Kelli keeps that youthful edge and adds the cynical humor that came with aging. Her voice gets dropped down over the musical concoctions of Liam Howe and Chris Corner. Together as three, these trip-poppers stretch their antics beyond the lyrics on their Virgin debut album, 'Becoming X'. Through their liberal use of trip-hop beats, melodies, drum n' bass snares and synthesizer burbles, the Sneaker Pimps definitely have wandered off down their own path.

Kelli might as well be the little devil sitting on your shoulder - always encouraging the worst (but perhaps the most fun) kinds of behavior. Not one to take a backseat to the slings and arrows of outrageous stardom, Kelli and the band have readily taken to the stuporific craziness. She quickly says how many really, really good times they've had together on the road and then realizes she can't remember most of them. Fortunately, her memory struggled to recall one night's comedy, "Somebody offered cocaine to Liam one night and was going mad about him turning it down. It was just because he couldn't hear what they were saying. That was one jolly old laugh we had. We all found out this morning through actually comparing notes."

During our conversation, their cross-firing wit constantly poked the ribs of everyone. Kelli hadn't received the adorations of the following that has clumped about Shirley Manson from Garbage. Is she feeling left out? "No, I'm happily in love." "With her own image!" quipped Liam. As Liam bounced up and down on the hotel bed, Kelli requested that this article begin with the title, "LIAM IS A SPASTIC", later adding that she likes to get away with everything that she can without getting beaten up afterwards by her bandmates.

Not one to ever doubt herself, Kelli firmly stated, "I've always been a rock star. I've never been an ordinary person." She was destined for the musician's life from birth but has now, at the age of 22, gotten into a position where her lifestyle can catch up with her persona. Without a record, she had to occupy herself as a rock-star-to-be. "There's nothing so bad as somebody who is a rockstar at heart. Nothing. I just wanted to play music."

Liam and Chris, the men behind the beats, had been working on acid jazz and other projects in London, putting out vinyl singles as Line Of Flight and F.R.I.S.K., before settling down to a deal with Clean Up records. After seeing Kelli perform in a pub one night, Chris and Liam approached her about working together. As Kelli said, their juncture occurred through sheer, "Do you want to do something with us? Yeah, I'll come around on the weekend and do something."

The casual beginning took a rocky twist as they discovered Kelli's background as an electro-goth girl didn't make for a quick and easy fit into their musical scheme. Rather than trashing the project, the band decided their creative differences could make for some creative permutations. The result, 'Becoming X', crunches these problems of extremely unrelated styles into the best full-length trip-pop albums yet. Each song has touches of irony, wit and darkness. "Low Place Like Home" easily could get confused for Dorothy's eternal "There's no place like home!". It sounds so familiar but , given the Pimps workout, it comes out as a bit of a piss-take, a little lyrical joke from the dark side. Musically, the match comes together perfectly.

As the Pimps begin their multi-continent conquest, there's still loads of activity coming from within their camp. Liam hasn't given up all of his production skills; he was just in the studio with Neneh Cherry working on her new album. In the past, they've taken '60s and '70s folk songs and turned them into something more pimped-out. Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home", written by '60s teenagers Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, wound up with a drum 'n bass re-working on the "6 Underground" single. On an upcoming single, a folk rendition of the Prodigy's most recent single "Breathe" will be the B-side. Also in the works, potential remixes from one of the Prodigy boys, a Japanese tour and then a full-blown US tour.

In the immediate future, no mass murder plans exist. Subterfuge seems to be the current plan as the singles get played on KCRW, rarely on KROQ and all the time on home stereos. Listen to that little devil on your shoulder - you'll be glad you did.

Electronica's Softer Side

by Andrew Altschul

 If you listen to the radio these days for more than five minutes, you're likely to hear one of those songs: sultry and atmospheric, with drum loops and sweeping keyboards, the guitar sounds altered into unrecognizability, and a serene but alluring female voice riding along the top like morning fog over San Francisco Bay. It might be "6 Underground," the Sneaker Pimps' hit single from the Becoming X CD. Or, it might be any of a number of contemporaries -- Olive, Dubstar, even some of the tracks on the new Sundays CD -- who share the Pimps' aesthetic and which, along with the more testosterone-fueled music of bands like the Prodigy and Chemical Brothers, make up the current phenom known as "Electronica."

"On the one hand, I think it's a farce," says Liam Howe, the Sneaker Pimps' keyboardist. "This posthumous American description of Electronica seems totally late and unnecessary."

In the Pimps' native England, of course, there is nothing new or phenomenal about electronic music. "Electro," as Howe calls it, has been standard fare since groups like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk began changing the standard instrumentations in the mid to late '70s.

"Nevertheless, it's been very convenient for us," Howe continues. "We're quite happy to be linked with people like Chemical Brothers. We came from the same background as they did."

That background, for Howe and guitarist Chris Corner, included a steady diet of the electronic music pioneers -- "My brother would buy me Kraftwerk records; for an 11 year old, that's really quite mean..." -- and years working the U.K. club and rave scene during the early '90s.

"I saw that synthesizers were the entire reason for music to be an art whatsoever," Howe says, half-seriously. "Guitars needed to be burnt and thrown onto a huge, worldwide skiff. I've had to change that opinion. I've gotten over my guitar phobia."

After releasing several dance records, Howe and Corner decided it was time to evolve into a more original and diverse musical style. "We were beginning to get frustrated with the anonymity of [dance music]," Howe says. "Like every underground thing, as soon as it gets popular it loses some of its spark."

Enter Kelli Dayton -- the Pimps' fog-over-the-bay chanteuse -- whom they found singing with a punk band in Birmingham. Add to her arrival a demo, recorded largely in Howe's father's house, remixes of "6 Underground" and "Wasted Early Sunday Morning" by Soul II Soul's Nellee Hooper and producer Flood, respectively, and the newly named Sneaker Pimps soon found themselves releasing their first album on Virgin Records and having their praises extolled by the British press. With "6 Underground's eerie sensuality, and the growing popularity of ambient music in the U.S., the Sneaker Pimps were a cinch to catch on stateside.

A cynical American fan (or music critic) might notice the name of the album, Becoming X , and wonder whether the Pimps weren't going for some instant credibility by aligning themselves with that other cultural fad, the one that preceded Electronica, the one we don't hear much about any more. But Howe explains that the album title was conceived in reaction to the Gen X hype rather than out of any

identification with it.

"X could be anything -- [from] Malcolm X to a kiss or a cross or a signature [of] someone who can't sign their name," he says. "The idea of becoming a symbol which is culturally abused, it's kind of approaching the problems of anonymity."

Whatever those problems might be, it's unlikely that the Sneaker Pimps will have to contend with them any longer. With "6 Underground" engraved into American psyches and Becoming X lodged on Billboard 's Top 200, it looks like smooth sailing for the near future. The band has embarked on their second tour of the United States, which will bring them to San Diego later this month. Their concerts are looser and more improvisational than the impeccably produced album -- they use no sequencers on stage, occasionally resulting in mistakes and sudden changes of direction, which, Howe says, "is how it should be, really."

Although the band has enjoyed bringing their music to American audiences, Howe says that fans of electronic music here are noticeably different than their English counterparts. At a recent "rave" in San Bernardino, the band was surprised

by how relatively subdued the audience was.

"It was just farcical. English raves are huge, illegal, and fun. I've never seen so many glum-looking people in one aircraft hangar."

Chris Corner, in particular, might be a little more subdued on this tour -- after their May appearance at 'Canes, the guitarist "got really screwed up" and decided to sample the city's greatest resource -- the ocean -- running into the surf fully dressed, shoes, tie and all.

"We had to fish him out in the moonlight," says Howe. "Quite romantic." Howe is cool to the suggestion that the band top this feat with a group swim after the upcoming show. After all, the song is called "6 Underground," not "3 Underwater."

Roger Morton interviews the Sneaker Pimps in DAYTON CONFUSED!
NME Interview - 16 August 1997

Wet and wild, she's a typical '90s child. At least, if you were drawing your inferences from the lyrics to the new Sneaker Pimps single `Post Modern Sleaze', that's what you might presume Kelli Dayton was. Some kind o' tattooed wild child X girl, chemical gen, artificial sweetheart thug of a late-20th century archetype.
Her photos have just the right amount of pouty exotic amalgamated hip style.
Her backing beats are slow and low enough to imply the requisite rejection of the old indie ghetto. The words she sings, dangling amidst the limber, alien, gothfolk-trip-pop of the Sneaker Pimp sound web, are all wistful, spun out, dysfunctional sensuality. "She's wet and wild, a typical '90s child... " Well, not really folks. The only wet things round here are the terrapins swimming chaotically in an overcrowded tank trying to communicate telepathically with the petite, sensible, matter-of-fact, Birmingham girl
who has her nose pressed up against their glass cage.
"Aren't they weird?" says Kelli. "I used to have terrapins myself, but they grow a lot bigger than this if there's more room."
A bit like pop bands really. We are in a multiplex photo studio in London. Just down the corridor, Jake from My Life Story is being nagged into taking his shirt off. Further along, some unknown wannabes are getting press shots done. A framed Bryan Ferry stares moodily down from the wall. It's a busy day in the tank, and if you think that Kelli and her boy Pimp cohorts are in any way typical, then maybe that's down to the overcrowding.
"There's something bad about the music business," says Kelli, pausing to ponder the downside of her current situation. "A lot of the people who are in the music business, especially in America, they seem to lose whatever got them to this point. A lot of them seem to lose their soul. Lose their
spark."
So are you saying you're different, that you've got principles and integrity?
"I wouldn't call it integrity. I'd just call it taste."
PUSH your face up close to the Pimps and what can seem like an easy-to-file hybrid of trendiness, styling, kitten-clawing vocals and contemporary syncopation starts to separate out. Step up closer and they're not just types out of the stereo. They are real, striving, confused, arguing, individual specimens. If you've heard 'Six Underground' and 'Spin Spin Sugar and decided that they are a mere dry twig on the same tree that's given us Garbage, Portishead, Moloko, Lamb, Republica, Tricky and, erm, Dubstar, then
you've done them an injustice.
"Our only similarity with Dubstar is that we use the same vocal microphone," says Liam Howe.
Sneaker Pimps, see, are as kooky as free-range terrapins. As a coherent pop entity they are a mess. In the photographer's studio, founder members Liam and Chris Corner peep awkwardly in the mirror. Liam is tall and masculine. Chris is slight and feminine. The former gets his musical thrills listening to avant-garde composer John Cage. The latter gets his make-up tips from Nick Rhodes. Chris had his first shag to The Sugarcubes' 'Birthday'. Liam's first shag music was Landscape's 'Einstein A Go- Go'.
And that's only the start of it. Two supplementary Pimps (drummer Dave Westlake and bassist Joe Wilson) have already legged it after being told (not entirely inaccurately) by the photographer that Dave has the look of a psycho in his eyes. There is, in fact, a haunted look in the eyes of all of them.
"I remember talking to this reporter in America," says Chris blearily. "And I was at a particularly low point and it turned into this ridiculous therapy session not talking about the music at all, almost crying on this woman's shoulder. I fell in love with her because she was helping me on a really bad day."
The Pimps, see, have been in America big-time, and it has accentuated their various oddities. Where once there was a fully functional pair of Hartlepool buddies who got together because Liam started going out with Chris' sister and ended up doing smoky beats dance tracks as FRISK/Line Of Flight, there now slumps a pair chewed-up remnants.
"It seems like we are clinging on to sanity," says Liam. "Unless you're Status Quo, some hardened gigster, the boredom and excess is very odd. We were kind of put in the deep end when we started to do live music, we always knew we wanted to do live, it's an integral part. But we didn't expect it to
be like this. We didn't expect to be Japanese salesmen."
Where once there was a fresh faced fusion of Shirley Bassey-loving James Lavelle fans and a ex-punk singer from Birmingham: with psychobilly leanings, then now quivers three dollops of post-tour micro-psychosis squeezed from the giant toothpaste tube of Electronica in America. In the new digital rock climate, the Pimps have been shifting US units. They've schmoozed at the LA premiere of The Saint ('Six Underground' figured on the soundtrack). They've been 'checked out' by REM in New York. And they've stumbled back home via Euro gigging to wonder what-the-tripped- out-terrapin happened.
"Chris did a Reginald Perrin-style run into the sea in San Diego and gave himself to the waves," says Liam. "He was in his suit and tie and everything, in he went and I had to fish him out. It was a humbling moment, we walked back in the moonlight hand in hand."
" I got back and rang me mum and cried for about an hour," sniffs Chris.
Pop, see, has got them by the scruff. Starting off with the idea that it'd be a laugh to dive deep into the absurdity of it all, they're now feeling the damage. Chris keeps asking for interview therapy. Liam blabbers endless conceptual tautologies. Kelli mutters about her cold and breaking-down tourbuses.
Dayton should, in fact, be the best equipped to cope. Her half Irish-Indian background in Bartley Green was stable and suburban, yet she was hanging out with the city-centre scuzz kids and singing in bands from the age of 16. She carries none of the hyper-analytical introspection that ensnares her
colleagues.
Do you reckon you're a typical '90s girl?
"No, I don't know, I've never known a typical person, so I don't know. I don't think I could really describe myself."
Do you like the idea of being an icon in a pop band?
"I just don't really think about that. If you knew what shambles we are as people I'm sure people wouldn't even follow us."
Do you feel exotic?
"Sometimes. But not today."
Within the Pimps circuitry, Dayton is the enabling factor. She's what makes their self-conscious 'now' styling lovable. The Prozac-flavoured ennui of the lyrics to their 'Becoming X' debut album are written by lan Pickering - a journalist from Birmingham. The listless beats and magpie'd tinctures of the tunes are constructed by Liam and Chris with half an eye on cultural theory ('Post Modern Sleaze' is digital folk). Then Kelli comes along and sings the sensuality into it.
"If you get a sensual person singing sensual songs then it all becomes a bit obvious, like an angry person singing angry songs," she says. "So I like that combination. Because as a singer you couldn't be as numb as the music suggested. The music is about the middle ground, the grey area of not even thinking consciously but even that grey area to me is pretty strange and sensual."
That sounds very '90s. Very end-of-the-century.
"Yeah, I guess without really knowing it I suppose we are. We have no interest in repeating the past. And we have no interest in pretending to be pioneers of the future, so I think we are best placed in the now.
"But I think that we are different in that we are not about blabbering on about things that people have been blabbering on about forever. It's not just about love. There are a lot of real seething numbers, real anger. And I think when you really take those emotions out and look at them they are so much more interesting and humorous to sing about.
"I find love very hard to write and sing about without sounding like an absolute prat. It's a shame, but I think it's true. I do believe in monogamy and I'm very much in love with the person I'm with, I've written songs about him in the past but I can't understand people who write about love in its
birthday card form.
"I think if you look at the people who do write about that sort of thing, usually they're screwing 14-year-olds and taking cocaine up their ass. They're certainly not the puppy dogs they make themselves out to be in their songs. It's a way of making money. So at least you can try and be honest in what you do."
Kelli is not Celine Dion. She is a vocaliser of the grey truths about our lives. Roll-on roll-off sex ('Roll On'), drug hangovers ('Wasted Early Sunday Morning') and muddled emotions (everything else on the bleeding album). Not a frosty-style chick poseur then, but a real human being, with a real cold, shuffling off towards her "nervous breakdown in two months time".
That's Kelli, then. Rock tattoos. Backing vocals on Brian Ferry's next album. Sensible enough to talk about terrapins. Gets drunk in Marco Pierre White's poncey West End restaurant, and tells the visiting American music biz bigwigs to "Fuck off, you American cunts!"
"She's Jekyll and Hyde when she drinks," says Liam.
She was telling the waiter to 'suck his cock' and pointing to me," says Chris.
Kelli might be responsible for the odd drunken outburst but the mangled behavioural contradictions which make the Pimps kind of charming are substantially down to Liam and Chris. We are, after all, dealing with a man (Liam) who confesses late into the interview that his greatest fear in life is of turning into Bill 'KLF' Drummond "because it would be the obvious thing to do," he trembles.
Liam, see, did art at Reading Uni. Having decided that all painters were traditional farts, him and a mate once cemented speakers playing a looped sample of Boney M's 'Painter Man' in the rafters of the uni painting area. Then they went away for a week.
From messing with the heads of the oil daubers it's a short absurdist hop to collaborating with Marilyn Manson on a track for the Spawn soundtrack album even though "generally speaking goths can burn in hell for all I care... it was a typical Sneaker idea of playing with fire and getting burned."
The Liam'n'Chris section of today's discussion comprises two hours of Liam accelerating into a hyperlinguistic gonzo cultural dissection. Meanwhile, Chris holds his head in his hands asking for help, struggling to keep his ex-Astrophysics student-from Hartlepool brain from melting down.
It's part of the wonder of the Pimps, and it's another thing that separates them from Dubstar, that they've just released a single which clearly displays full-on postmodern musical attributes while touting a lyric which slags off people who get into a bit of mix 'n' match lifestyle postmodernism - "She must be a Thelma or Louise / She must be a postmodern sleaze."
"I think it's self-critical, only last night we were saying that we were characters in our songs. Our songs are about middle-class people who buy into problems and think it's really chic to be fucked up," says Chris.
So you're sleazy too?
"Yeah. We've bought into it, we've bought into sleaze. That's all part of the fashion label thing. We know it's shit, we know we're stupid, we know we are being had by corporate powers, but it's fun! That's what it comes down to: basic hedonism! "In a song like 'Six Underground' we can be arrogant but we can be totally humble. It goes, 'Don't think because I'm talking we're friends' which is a bit of a nasty line, but then it's saying, 'Jesus Christ! There is nothing, nothing at all that I'm interested in in my head! My head is just a pile of shite! There's not a single thought which entertains me!' It's just a struggle between confidence and total self-deprecation."
An hour later Liam is getting to the end of one long rant, taking in Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, street-chic furniture designer Tom Dixon's chairs, the chilling art school horror of Gene, and irony, sludge and the death of postmodernism, rounding off with a look at what it's like to be turning into willing- victim cliché magnets and selling your soul to 'the pop devil'.
It's been a stunning impersonation of Bill Drummond hijacking the rhetoric of the early Manic Street Preachers after a week in a cupboard with the texts of Jacques Derrida. And it's all cool stuff, but the pop photo factory around us has not spontaneously burst into flames and Jake from My Life
Story has not been saved from taking off his shirt.
The achievements of the hour are, however, twofold: a) Liam has made an incontrovertible case for the Sneaker Pimps not being just another brainlessly platitudinous style bauble that you can lump in willy-nilly with Dubstar and b) Chris has nearly scratched off the Nike symbol hand tattoo which he had done on a last afternoon in Arizona.
"So there is this absolute eclectic approach to commodity," continues Liam. "There's something extraordinarily important about following the discourse of the moment. And if that means you don't seem to have any innate pleasures or likes, then I think that's just the way forward! Confusion is our staple diet."
Taraaa! Chris looks up for the first time in 20 minutes. "You are talking bollocks. He could stitch us up so badly with this rubbish."
Liam pauses to reassess.
"Yeah, but it's just today's talk," he concludes. "Some days we talk about drugs and fucking people. We just change and flip. It's not as if we sit around after a gig and discuss tonality. It's more a case of trying to get the birds."
In the crowded terrapin tank of post-postmodern (sic) pop, there is definitely room for a fusion as brilliantly confused as the Sneaker Pimps.