Earwig Interview

Interview from Launch Online

MTV online review

Sneaker Pimps are "filth-driven pop people"(from Rolling Stone)
 

Earwig Interview

While the music industry still scrambles to search for Sneaker Pimps analogies (Tricky and Portishead being the most common), the British troop is busily stamping a lasting imprint on these shores. The Sneaker Pimps (the band name comes from a phrase coined by the Beastie Boys to describe someone they paid to search for hard-to-find gym shoes) meld hypnotic trip-hop grooves with folk rock guitars, chilling vocals and a dusky feel. As keyboardist Liam Howe and guitarist Chris Corner paint a dark, haunting backdrop on tracks like "6 Underground," "Low Place Like Home" and "Spin Spin Sugar," Kelli Dayton sings of urban desolation and despair. But as bleak as that amalgam could be, there is faint hope for the characters on the Sneaker Pimps' debut Becoming X. Along with longtime friends Howe and Corner, who began collaborating in 1992, first under the name F.R.I.S.K. and later Line Of Flight, and Dayton, the Sneaker Pimps have added bassist Joe Wilson and drummer Dave Westlake. Howe spoke to Earwig about the Pimps' noir sensibilities and tendency to avoid techno music cliches.

Earwig: I've read a lot of interviews where you guys said you consciously wanted to be pop stars.

Liam Howe: I think it's quite honest. It's an honest motivational thing. A lot of people stand in front of the mirror and pretend to be their favorite singer. That's kind of inherent in a lot of people who make music. It's better doing that when you're young than when you're old because there's nothing more foul than a wrinkled old pop star.

EW: There are plenty of those out there.

Howe: We don't want to be doing this when we're 50. I think I'd rather be writing film music or something. So yeah, we sort of made a conscious decision to pursue the whole world of pop. Even though ... the baggage is a bit difficult. The luggage of pop music. The whole disposability and fickleness and its transient nature. But I think if you ride it well and play the game and hold onto some thread of integrity, I think it's worth doing.

EW: How do you do that? Do you feel like there's pressure on you already?

Howe: I think it's a continuous struggle to write music you think is personally very important, and to write music that has a place in pop culture, and hopefully the two things coexist. ... I suppose it's the same as the comparison between dance music and traditional folk songwriting, of which we have both of in our music. [We have] contemporary fashionable electronic influences; at the same time we want to write music that means something in 20 years time. There's always a balance you have to achieve between those two slightly antagonistic factors.

Earwig: Do you feel your lyrics are being overshadowed by the music?

Liam Howe: I think the lyrics are important to us. We're not the token dance band that does boring dance music like "Take me higher baby" over a pumping house beat. Lyrics of the songs ... it has to survive on a page. Same as the song -- it has to survive on an acoustic guitar. And that means you can progress and dress it in whatever electronically you wish, or make it as contemporary sounding or up to date or developed as you like. You have to start with something that's worth bothering with.

EW: Did you write the songs before you found Kelli?

Howe: Yeah. Me and Chris were doing kind of slowish cinematic dance music with chopped up beats without voices. Again, coming back to the idea of wanting to be in a pop band and doing all the things pop bands do, like touring America in a bus for six weeks. Of course that was never going to happen if we were just concerned with writing music in a bedroom and never really connecting with the public or the audience. I think it was inherent within us, the desire. We found Kelli, almost casually found her singing in another band, and we said, "Well, do you want to a few tunes?" and gradually me and Chris wrote the album. Very slowly we recorded it. It was never a colossal event.

EW: From everything I read, she was in the punk rock club scene.

Howe: Oh yeah, ... it would have been too easy to find someone with the same record collection and say, yeah we all love this, let's replicate it. Me and Chris have never really been in bands before and have played very few gigs, well, one which was just an instrumental thing. So getting someone who spent her entire teenage existence shouting in front, with crappy punk bands, it was something we thought in order to transform into a pop phenomenon, we need somebody who's been shouting in pubs.

EW: Did you have to work really hard with her to get her out of that style?

Howe: Not really. The same as we were bored just doing dance music, Kelli was bored just doing music in pubs. She was just very keen on trying different things out and joining the experiment. We had big hopes for her but we were never too assuming. We thought, well we'll see how it goes. Of course it went well. So it was never like we were going to sit down and write a manifesto, and go, "OK, this is what we're going to do." It was casual.

EW: Do you and Chris write the lyrics together?

Howe: And Ian Pickering.

EW: Who is he?

Howe: He's an old friend of mine from school. We grew up together. Me, him and Chris have been friends for years. Because we grew up in the same place, our mental structure is similar. ... I was always extremely lazy. I would write a couple of lines for the verse and a single line for the chorus and go, "OK, I know exactly what I want this to be and I know what it's about but I haven't got the confidence or the reason to write the rest of it." ... So it's really good that Ian comes along and fills in the gaps.

Earwig: There seems to be a lot of songs with desperate people like in "Post-Modern Sleaze" or "Waterbaby."

Liam Howe: There is a certain brooding, there's moodiness, and I think desperation is in there. I think it's approached in a whimsical or capricious way and we tend to use satire rather than self-pity. I think whereas a lot of trip-hop is a very sullen, Poe-faced thing, I think we do talk about sullen, grim things. I think in order to survive it has to be ... writing things with a smile on your face is better.

EW: Do you feel like this album is a success story? There are some strong characters like in "Tesko Suicide."

Howe: It's pretty complicated. I simplified it by saying it was about a small town. There is a theme about that, about the irritation and frustration of being kept down by a small-town mentality. But there are all sorts of things in there. Sexuality and just about every oddity in '90s culture. I think things like that; the content can fit quite seamlessly on the next album.

EW: Will the next one have a similar noir-style approach to the lyrics.

Howe: I think, certainly, the theme is going to have to change, because you can only do one album about getting out of a small town. We are now out of the small town, so it would be fake to write music about how cool we are, or how unheard of we are. So I think there'll be common threads between the two albums, but there are certain things, simply by success, we are now prevented from doing.

EW: Are there any elements of pop culture you're dying to write about?

Howe: I don't know. I think places like Los Angeles seems to be absolutely consumed with Sneaker Pimp characters. We have people who design their own problems and fake their lives. All that kind of stuff. There's a healthy crop of people in America to write about.

Earwig: What is the design on the album cover?

Liam Howe: It's a circuit board from an obsolete piece of '70s hobby electronics. It's a thing called DJ Killer. It's a device that, when built and put in line with the radio signal, it detects a DJ's voice and eliminates it ... which I thought was really funny. Again, it was just one of these flippant little follies which I think the album is full of. It's kind of frowning at the idea techno. You could look at the album and say, "Oh, it's just a simple endorsement of electronica," but I think it's more ironic. It's more satirical. It's just like saying this is what can happen if you get too excited about electronics. You can end up making useless, culturally laughable shit. I think the same way if you've ever got too excited about electronic music; you make useless, culturally unimportant shite.

EW: You probably think it's funny coming from England, seeing America grasping onto something that has already died out over there.

Howe: Exactly, that's the chuckle. [The album] has this critical electronic cover and it's turned into a huge selling point in America because it captures the whole enthusiasm over here.

EW: I guess it's to your advantage not to be lumped into that.

Howe: Yeah, I'd rather not be lumped into any fad. I think one of the only conservative points of our music is that we put all our eggs in different baskets. Being eclectic is sometimes noncommittal. It means in an evolutionary sense, we can quickly jump genres if something goes wrong.

EW: Have there been any descriptions of your music you've seen that makes you think "Maybe we should start calling ourselves that"?

Howe: No. The only one I liked was from Joe [Wilson] our bass player who said it sounds like five people fighting in a record shop. I quite like the idea of that because a lot of the times it is like five people -- now with Joe and Dave [Westlake] on board, on bass and drums respectively -- we're always kind of championing our own tastes in music. Antagonism is a healthy way of working.

EW: What are the different tastes?

Howe: To be extraordinarily simplistic -- Chris, because of the folk acoustic guitar thing, would be folk, I'd be electro, Joe would be indie hip-hop or something, Dave would be jazz and Kelli would be punk. We need more people -- someone could be country and western someone else could be soul. Then we got the whole record store.
 
 

Interview from LAUNCH ONLINE

"The symbol 'X' is one of the most abused symbols in 20th-century culture," muses the

Sneaker Pimps' Liam Howe. He's pondering the title of his band's debut release on Virgin,

enigmatically titled Becoming X, and what exactly it would mean for someone to do so. It

doesn't sound like the most clear-cut course of action. "'X' is a variable in mathematics," he

notes, "meaning that it's a substitute for whatever you like. So there's that instant ambiguity.

And when we were in America, someone said that it could be a cross. Then someone else

said it was a kiss. Plus there's Generation X, and Malcolm X, and on goes the list..."

It's quite understandable if the members of this British trio plug in a few unknown quantifiers

when discussing the future. The young group are just getting used to their present, having

put out their first album and begun the grueling whirlwind of international touring. The band

members, all of whom are age 25 or under, grew up in small towns in Britain and hadn't

really traveled much before Becoming X put them on the musical map. That's all about to

change, as the group's first American single, "6 Underground" (with its dense remix by Soul

II Soul's Nellee Hooper), is rapidly becoming a club and video-channel hit.

All three Sneaker Pimps had been raised in the suburban shadow of the big city;

keyboardist Howe and guitarist Chris Corner came of age together near the then-hot

Manchester music scene, and decided to collaborate on home-made basement tapes

around 1992. They met up with sultry vocalist Kelli Dayton a few years later, who had

been gigging around with various Birmingham bands since she was a teen. The three soon

began developing the Pimps' signature sound: a smooth, languorous groove with Dayton's

almost-torchy, almost-new-wave vocals floating atop. It's tough music to categorize:

danceable yet not techno, catchy but not pop, and soulful but not soul.

It's easy to try to lump the band in with the happening trip-hop/electronica scene, but Howe

notes that the Sneaker Pimps always emphasize the song amidst the keyboards and beat

--something that's not usually foregrounded in dance music, but is necessary with Dayton's

crisp, strong voice in the mix. "You would be foolish," Howe insists, "to indulge [in

electronics] to the extent of forgetting about the whole songwriting aspect. Even if we have

really complicated electronic production, or if we've interpreted things in a very electronic

way, the songs can still work in the simplest of scenarios: with acoustic guitar. But it has to

work as a song, and, if it does, then you can progress to the electronic domain."

Fairly typically for such a synth-based, musically sculpted unit, the Sneaker

Pimps had honed their skills sharply in the studio but had only played a few live gigs at the time

of their signing to Virgin. One of their biggest adjustments was having to perform music in front

of an expectant, judgmental crowd, instead of comfortably noodling at home in the privacy of

their bedrooms. "I like to have things under control," admits Howe. "When you're playing live,

you have to give up a lot of responsibility to other people, and to the moment as well." He

acknowledges, though, that he's since "warmed up to it," and now he's enjoying touring,

especially when it means he gets to experience new cities and people.

But, even with their recently-acquired big-city outlook (all three have relocated to London),

that stifling suburban influence still lingers in their lyrics, such as those to "6 Underground": "I've

got a head full of drought down here/So far off losing out 'round here." Like the disaffected

kids who invented late-'70s punk, creative types raised in a repressed environment often make

that the topic of their art once they manage to burst out, and the Sneaker Pimps felt this

impulse strongly.

"'6 Underground' is about the claustrophobia," says Howe, "of not being able to creatively

express yourself in a very small town. It's enormously difficult to have your say, or any effect

from what you say. We compared it to existing in a coffin, or being restricted to the point of

being buried. So it's a reference to being 6 foot underground."

Many of the songs on Becoming X reflect similar yearnings; the trio of lyricists like to stand

back and take a hard look at youth culture's role at the end of the millennium. "It's not about

criticizing," says Howe, "but about having a laugh or a cry or a kind of smile about it. It's a wry

excursion through the various opinions of the '90s."

And one they have strong feelings about is what Howe terms a "fashionable" angst and

depression among well-to-do young people, which he feels is encouraged by pop culture. One

of Becoming X's more controversial tunes, "Tesko Suicide," is about how the media tends to

glamorize self-inflicted death. Howe lists off examples: James Dean's cliff-hanging finale, Kurt

Cobain's shotgun blast, and the David Bowie tune, "Rock And Roll Suicide."

England is a very popular nationwide supermarket," explains Howe. "Me and Kelli were

having an argument one night in the local pub, and I was suggesting, in my drunken state, that

everyone who thinks suicide's dead cool should have the choice of going down to their local

superstore and buying a suicide kit that would cost two pounds fifty. And then they could go

home and kill themselves. It was kind of a flippant remark, but it was about these people I

know and the whole designed rot which affects youth culture."

But the three band members themselves, while they may not be completely free from

unwarranted moroseness, probably don't have much time to drum up extra worries. They're

too busy enjoying the unexpected attention that Becoming X's release is bringing them. "We

didn't anticipate any of this at all," marvels Howe. "We wanted it, but we never expected it or

demanded it. It could have easily been a very underground studio project, but luckily things

have gone well."
 

 from MTV Online

Sneaker Pimps
  @ Irving Plaza, New York, NY 4/23/97

Kelli Dayton, frontwoman for the gloomy British trio Sneaker Pimps, is among the more media-friendly
  figures in the late-breaking electronica scene. She's got spiky black hair, full red lips, and a punk
  background. On the band's debut, "BECOMING X," her voice is equally affected and infantile, filling
  out the savvy grooves of keyboardist Liam Howe and guitarist Chris Corner with acerbic wit and sass.
  Not unlike the Cardigans' Nina Persson, she has a gift for making even the most cynical insights seem
  cuddly and sweet.

  Yet unlike Persson, who is backed by a charismatic bunch of guys, Dayton is required to triple-time it in
  terms of stage presence. Opening with the ill-boding "Becoming X," Howe barely registered from
  behind his analog keyboard decks, and Corner's nonchalant guitar stylings weren't exactly
  eye-grabbing. That left Dayton -- all slithering hips and coy, sideways glances -- with the burden of
  warming up the band's icy demeanor. She seemed gleefully lost within "Spin Spin Sugar"'s bassed-out
  dementia, shaking her head and tightening up her girlish face. But aside from cleverly introducing the
  signature "Post-Modern Sleaze" as simply "P - M - S," Dayton wasn't really up to engaging the
  audience either, who were less mobile than Howe and Corner combined. She dryly remarked at one
  point, "You know, it is okay to dance to us."

  But should we dance at every concert? The crowd's overall mood at this electro-pop show was curious.
  How exactly are these self-described "beat-led, filth-driven pop" bands going to tranform themselves
  on stage? The big shocker was how the Pimps, joined by a hired rhythm section, came off like a
  genuine rock band -- even though they used backing tapes here and there. Quasi-hits like "6
  Underground" and "Tesko Suicide" (an uplifting ditty about a Kevorkian-like device one can purchase
  in convenience stores) were given fat, beefy workouts with slightly refigured arrangements and added
  instrumental garnish. In the end, the show mainly demonstrated how Sneaker Pimps have yet to carry
  the intriguing synthesis of "BECOMING X" into their live act. If they can learn to play as if people are
  actually watching them, maybe they'll do just that.

  -- Smith Galtney
 
 

From Rolling Stone
Sneaker Pimps are "filth-driven pop people"
by Matt Diehl
 
 

  Postmodern Sleaze' - it would be lovely if that category existed for us," says Liam Howe, keyboardist/sonic
  architect for Sneaker Pimps, the latest in the recent onslaught of UK bands putting a distinctive spin on
  electronic club rhythms. "Post Modern Sleaze" is actually the title of a song from the Pimps' hypnotic debut
  album, Becoming X, yet Howe feels that it's a more accurate tag for what his band does than the plethora of
  classifications that segregate Britain's dance-music scene. "We're beat-led, filth driven pop people who have
  our finger in every musical pie." he continues. "it's just '90s post-sampler, confused-culture music."
      Going on in his prim English accent about 'Mass-information culture in late-20th-century America" Howe
  comes off more like a professor than a pop star. Still, there's no denying that the Pimps' mishmash of sounds
  is hard pigeonhole, drifting from the stuttering drum-and-bass rhythms in "Spin Spin Sugar" to their
  ambient-folk cover of "How Do," a traditional English ballad. The Pimps' prickly appeal, however, centers
  around singer Kelli Dayton. A sloe-eyed pixie with a punk do as spiky as her personality, Dayton brings the
  same carnal voltage to her cohorts' machine-age grooves as Shirley Manson does to Garbage's. On cuts like
  "Tesko Suicide" (about mass-suicide machine sold in supermarkets) and "Waterbaby" (an ode to obsession
  detailing "40 days of one-night stands"), Dayton creates a rogues' gallery of twisted personae. "There is a
  sleazy element to us," Dayton admits. "It's not just a mask. I'm sure I have all that darkness and sensuality - I
  hope so. Have a drink with me and make your mind up."
      Dayton's haunting vocals provide a jolting counterpoint to the icy electronic textures of Howe and
  guitarist Chris Corner. For Howe, it's that erotic fiction where humans and technology interact that drives the
  Pimps. "Everybody wants to fuck or save the world," Howe states. "We like to contrast these primal
  motivations against the dangers of the technological  age."
      Sneaker Pimps grew out of England's early '90s dance-music revolution. which found Howe and Corner
  DJ'ing and releasing 12-inchers under monikers like F.R.I.S.K. and Line of Flight. Bringing together their
  diverse musical interests - one of their DJ nights was called Breakbeat to Bacharach - they sought to create a
  group that incorporated club beats in a more varied pop format. The duo approached Dayton after Howe's
  girlfriend saw her singing with a "sonically bad" punk band in a Birmingham, England, pub. Despite
  conflicting agendas (Dayton was initially "physically opposed to dance music"), Sneaker Pimps were born,
  cribbing their name from a Beastie Boys lackey who was assigned to search out vintage Adidas.
      The nascent trio cranked out much of Becoming X in a bedroom in Howe's dad's house; the resulting DIY
  grooves impressed megaproducers like Flood (U2, Smashing Pumpkins) and Nelli Hooper (Madonna, Bjork),
  both of whom contributed to Becoming X. While their buzz has since moved stateside, the Pimps' don't want
  to be prostituted to America's potentially fickle romance with electronica. "I hope [Americans] don't like us
  just because it's taking off as a fad," Dayton says, bristling. "There's more to us than samplers - we're more
  permanent than passing fancy."