Scroobius Pip interview ahead of Liverpool Music Week

eFestivals got the chance to talk to Pip from duo Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip ahead of their appearance at this year's Liverpool Music Week.

What are you up to at the moment?
I've just woken up in Leeds, we're in the middle of the tour, we had Leeds last night, and it was an absolutely amazing crowd last night, I think it was the best of the tour so far. So, that was good, and we're off to Newcastle today, to meet a load of fans for a drink and to sign some stuff.

You're playing Liverpool Music Week in November.
Yup I can't wait for that, we're playing there on the 3rd. That kind of ends the England leg of our tour because we're going onto Ireland the next day, and the show in Liverpool should be really good.

What can fans expect from your LMW show?
We're going to do a full tour set, and get as much in there as possible. It'll be a mixture of up tempo stuff, and more dark and cerebral serious stuff, and we'll try and give a good and enjoyable show.

Have you been to Liverpool Music Week before?
Yeah, we played it a couple of years ago. The venue was called Bumper I think, and it was really interesting because there was two stages in there, and they had the line-up set up so that while one band was playing on one stage, another band was setting up on the other, so there was this nice flow back and forth.

Did you enjoy it? What do you remember about it?
Yeah, it was great fun. The crowd was really up for it. We've always had great crowds in Liverpool, even from the early days of playing Evo, and things like that, it's been a really rowdy crowd. So, yes I'm really looking forward to it.

What makes you decide which festivals you'll appear at?
A lot of it depends upon timings. We like to play as many as possible, but that's not always an option. Then there's a familiarity, we've played Liverpool Music Week before and loved it, so it was kind of an easy choice when we're asked to come back. It also fitted perfectly at the end of our tour, so we could still have a full show and full production.

Have you ever played a guerrilla type gig at a festival, I'd have thought you don't need much kit?
You see, that's the common mistake, we can't actually do a guerrilla gig because Dan has keys, an MPC, a laptop, a drum machine, Kaoss pads, and a controller . So we need sixteen channels just for all that, which is more than most bands. The difference with bands also is that if they turn up and play not plugged in, then there's still sound from drums and guitars and things like that. Whereas if we turn up and play it's all electronic. But, we've done small ones at a festival once, I think it was Gatecrasher. We turned up and the main stage had been rained off, it was broken. So we ended up playing the Myspace bus or something, which had just enough kit, and we got a couple of hundred people rammed into a bus, that was fun.

So, when we can we do, but it's becoming more complicated. As we build and expand the live show it becomes more and more impossible, sadly.

Is there anyone on the bill at LMW that you'd love to see?
I've not really had a chance to look at the line-up yet, we've been on the road, and we're having to take each week as it comes. I mean, that's part of the fun of city festivals, where you can just find new people, and stroll around and see what's around without too much of a plan.

Have got a new album in the pipeline, will you be showcasing any new songs at LMW?
No, we had a new record out earlier in the year, and we're doing a load of stuff from that, and we've been touring that ever since. So, we've not really had a chance to start work on any even newer material. We'll be doing a mixture of the newer stuff and the older stuff, and it should be fun.

You played quite a few festivals this year, which one was your favourite festival experience?
Ooo, that's a tough one, we've played about thirty odd this year, I'd probably say that Bestival is a favourite, because the crowds are always so very good. We had a turn out of about 11-12,000 people apparently for that one. That was just amazing, to get that many turn out for our set. Glastonbury was really good this year too, and we did a few smaller ones, which we'd not done before, like Beatherder and a few others. There's been quite a few good ones.

You mentioned touring in other parts of the world, have you done festivals in other parts of the world?
Yes, I'd say over the festival season we did about 30 festivals, and I'd say only about 10 of them were in the UK, if that. We got out to Romania, Poland, Slovakia, Greece this year for the first time, Holland, Germany, and France as well. It was good to get around.

Which one did you have the best experience in?
Umm, I would say, probably... my favourite was probably Lowlands, which is in Holland. It's just a really great festival. They do really good line-ups and it's just amazingly organised. That was a favourite I think.

Had you been there before?
We played there about three years. It was one of the ones which was the first time we'd played at a foreign festival, and we were blown away by it then. We wondered when we went back , and because we've now played hundreds of festivals abroad, we wondered if it would be as good, or if it was just part of that moment of the first few times of getting to play abroad. But, yes it was exactly as good as we remembered, which is always a nice thing.

When you're at a festival is there anything essential you have to take with you?
Hmm, annoyingly we have to kind of swoop in and swoop out quite a bit. But the main thing I try to do when I'm at a festival is to try and see as many people as possible, and not necessarily always people I know of. It's good to get about and see other people.

Have you ever been to a festival as a punter?
Yeah, loads of times! I went to Glastonbury about three times and Reading four or five times, and I've been to Bestival every year, and we always try and stay most of the weekend, and take it all in. Yeah, I've been to loads of festivals over the years.

What advice would you give to someone going to a festival for the first time?
As boring, and as sad as it sounds... For me, my natural propensity at early festivals was just to try and get as smashed as possible. But the more I went the more I realised that keeping it a bit in measure meant I could see tonnes more bands and actually enjoy it quite a bit more. You can go and get drunk in a field anytime, but you've paid for a festival and there's a lot of amazing acts there, it's worth trying to take it all in.

Lastly have you got any festival appearances lined up for next year?
Not really, we've agreed to do Snowbombing again in Austria, and we're looking at taking a year off next year to work on new material. But, festivals like Bestival are going to be hard to say not to, because we love festivals. So we'll be doing around three or four a month, which compared to our usual schedule is a year off. We'll have a look at what comes up, but it's definitely going to be a lighter one next year.

Three or four a month over five months is quite a few?
Yes, it is quite a few, but this summer we were doing two or three a week. So, trying to keep it down to two weekends a month is quite relaxing for us.

Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip play Liverpool Music Week on Wednesday 3rd November at 02 Academy, to buy tickets click here.

LMW is billed as the UK's largest indoor winter music festival and will be staging over 880 events and play host to over 400 live bands and runs from the Friday 29th October through November.

The paid ticket events include Leftfield, Chase & Status, Efterklang, Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, Beardyman, Hadouken, K'naan, and more. For the line-up details as available please click here.

The festival format is a combination of ticketed shows and free shows, with artists including the UK's biggest live acts as well as new emerging talent.

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