The Rapture has come, so all sinners will be left on Earth. Thats a good thing because all of us at SuicideGirls are sinners and we want to listen to The Rapture, not the Kirk Cameron type Rapture but the fusion dance band with the new album, Pieces of the People We Love. I got a chance to talk with The Rapture band member Gabriel Andruzzi.
Buy Pieces of the People We Love
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you guys up to today?
Gabriel Andruzzi: Nothing. We just finished up about three months of touring. So were just home.
DRE: So youre back in Brooklyn?
GA: Yeah, pretty much. I just spent the past few days catching up with friends.
DRE: Are these friends you still want to be friends with after youre all rich and famous?
GA: I dont know. Ill see what happens when I get famous.
DRE: [laughs] How did the tour go?
GA: We did three nights over at the Academy with The Killers. We didnt do any touring with them. Last year we did a European tour and then we came home and did a US tour. Then we went back to the UK to do three nights with The Killers and then we were in England and Spain and Ireland just running around doing lots of TV show things. It was this weird week and a half of almost random shit.
DRE: Are you more popular at this point in the UK than over here?
GA: I dont know really. When it comes to the center of culture, were closer to the center there than we are here. I think the US doesnt respond in the same way to what we do.
DRE: Are you influenced by American funk bands?
GA: Yeah, like R & B and funk and oldies yeah. Definitely funk more so than rock and roll.
DRE: When you started did you realize you were mixing genres together?
GA: It is not totally conscious. Id say we draw upon funk music as much as we do from English bands, which a lot of people compare us to. One of my favorite records of all time is the first Parliament record. Ive been digging that record since I was 13. I grew up in DC going to Fugazi shows and I think of them as a funk band as much as they are a hardcore band. Also I went to go-go shows which is DCs indigenous funk music which had bands like Experience Unlimited who did the song Da Butt. So I grew up with that and I grew up listening to funk bands and going to dance parties. Thats the side of music I pay attention to.
DRE: When you tour with these rock bands, how do their audiences react to you?
GA: When we opened for The Killers, they have an audience that jumps up and down with their hands in the air and our audience dances more. It is a bit difficult because their audience is looking for one thing and theyre getting to see us and we do a much different thing than The Killers. I think thats also the problem with how were responded to in the US. Things like whats rock and roll and whats punk and whats hip-hop is really separate. Generally those things dont crossover because right now we have rock bands like Panic! At the Disco and Fallout Boy who are generally not that rhythmically oriented but we are rhythmically oriented as much as we are harmonically oriented.
DRE: Was Ben Dickinson, who directed your last video, a friend of yours?
GA: Bens a friend of ours. He lives right down the road. A while ago we were going through directors that we liked and we wanted to work with the collective that he works with called Waverly Films. We liked their work a lot and we figured out that we knew Ben. So we got in contact with him, became friends with him and then when it came time for the first video, we got him to write a treatment. Then we could also immediately talk with him about his treatment by then because we had already become better friends. Ben is a great guy. Ben did our first two videos and will probably do our next video as well.
DRE: Did you help come up with the concept for the video as well?
GA: No, Bens the one that came up with the basic idea. He had gone to a party at the roller rink and he says that the feeling that he got from the roller rink was the same feeling he got from that song and from seeing us live. So it was a no brainer for him. We brainstormed the idea and then off we went.
DRE: You had some really great producers on the album too. Was that something that you sought out or did the label think they would be a good fit?
GA: Well our A & R person and our management thought Danger Mouse would be a good fit. We first talked to him before the Gorillaz stuff came out. So we were only really familiar with The Grey Album and some of his solo music. We had a meeting with him and we got along with him well. So he was always in the back of our heads but we always saw him as a wild card. We decided that we really wanted to work with Ewan Pearson in some capacity as a programmer/producer but we wanted to pair him with somebody else. We thought of putting him with Paul Epworth. Both of them were friends, both of them did work that we thought was wonderful and both of them understood the band really well. There would be no explaining what the band was. We talked with a lot of older producers with a longer track record who just didnt really get what we were about. So we honestly had to push to work with some of the producers. I think we were ready to go into the studio well before we actually went in the studio and we had to more or less fight for what we wanted. So Ewan and Paul worked as a team and we did some tracks with Danger Mouse.
DRE: Is Danger Mouse constantly worried that Jay-Z is going to jump him?
GA: Yeah. That was the biggest problem because we had to keep switching studios [laughs].
DRE: So you guys started the label called Throne of Blood, is that after the Akira Kurosawa movie?
GA: Its after a couple things. [drummer] Vito [Roccoforte] came up with it after a after a Prince Jammy record and I thought That works great because I love samurai movies and Kurosawa is the dude.
DRE: I read that you will only be releasing vinyls through Throne of Blood.
GA: We have the vinyl rights to our music and it is important for us to put out 12 inch singles. We wanted to do our own label for a while so were just starting off by releasing The Rapture single with remixes on 12 inch. Maybe down the line we will release other things like side projects and records by friends and people we like but I dont think we want to do any CDs because we dont really want the label to be too complicated because we are very busy.
DRE: Whats next?
GA: Were mostly concentrating on touring right now. Were probably going to be touring through the summer. Weve been working on some things but weve been on the road for three months so were trying to take a breather. We definitely have some songs already for the future. Well see what they turn into. I definitely would like to get back into the studio and get writing again sooner than later.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Pieces of the People We Love
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you guys up to today?
Gabriel Andruzzi: Nothing. We just finished up about three months of touring. So were just home.
DRE: So youre back in Brooklyn?
GA: Yeah, pretty much. I just spent the past few days catching up with friends.
DRE: Are these friends you still want to be friends with after youre all rich and famous?
GA: I dont know. Ill see what happens when I get famous.
DRE: [laughs] How did the tour go?
GA: We did three nights over at the Academy with The Killers. We didnt do any touring with them. Last year we did a European tour and then we came home and did a US tour. Then we went back to the UK to do three nights with The Killers and then we were in England and Spain and Ireland just running around doing lots of TV show things. It was this weird week and a half of almost random shit.
DRE: Are you more popular at this point in the UK than over here?
GA: I dont know really. When it comes to the center of culture, were closer to the center there than we are here. I think the US doesnt respond in the same way to what we do.
DRE: Are you influenced by American funk bands?
GA: Yeah, like R & B and funk and oldies yeah. Definitely funk more so than rock and roll.
DRE: When you started did you realize you were mixing genres together?
GA: It is not totally conscious. Id say we draw upon funk music as much as we do from English bands, which a lot of people compare us to. One of my favorite records of all time is the first Parliament record. Ive been digging that record since I was 13. I grew up in DC going to Fugazi shows and I think of them as a funk band as much as they are a hardcore band. Also I went to go-go shows which is DCs indigenous funk music which had bands like Experience Unlimited who did the song Da Butt. So I grew up with that and I grew up listening to funk bands and going to dance parties. Thats the side of music I pay attention to.
DRE: When you tour with these rock bands, how do their audiences react to you?
GA: When we opened for The Killers, they have an audience that jumps up and down with their hands in the air and our audience dances more. It is a bit difficult because their audience is looking for one thing and theyre getting to see us and we do a much different thing than The Killers. I think thats also the problem with how were responded to in the US. Things like whats rock and roll and whats punk and whats hip-hop is really separate. Generally those things dont crossover because right now we have rock bands like Panic! At the Disco and Fallout Boy who are generally not that rhythmically oriented but we are rhythmically oriented as much as we are harmonically oriented.
DRE: Was Ben Dickinson, who directed your last video, a friend of yours?
GA: Bens a friend of ours. He lives right down the road. A while ago we were going through directors that we liked and we wanted to work with the collective that he works with called Waverly Films. We liked their work a lot and we figured out that we knew Ben. So we got in contact with him, became friends with him and then when it came time for the first video, we got him to write a treatment. Then we could also immediately talk with him about his treatment by then because we had already become better friends. Ben is a great guy. Ben did our first two videos and will probably do our next video as well.
DRE: Did you help come up with the concept for the video as well?
GA: No, Bens the one that came up with the basic idea. He had gone to a party at the roller rink and he says that the feeling that he got from the roller rink was the same feeling he got from that song and from seeing us live. So it was a no brainer for him. We brainstormed the idea and then off we went.
DRE: You had some really great producers on the album too. Was that something that you sought out or did the label think they would be a good fit?
GA: Well our A & R person and our management thought Danger Mouse would be a good fit. We first talked to him before the Gorillaz stuff came out. So we were only really familiar with The Grey Album and some of his solo music. We had a meeting with him and we got along with him well. So he was always in the back of our heads but we always saw him as a wild card. We decided that we really wanted to work with Ewan Pearson in some capacity as a programmer/producer but we wanted to pair him with somebody else. We thought of putting him with Paul Epworth. Both of them were friends, both of them did work that we thought was wonderful and both of them understood the band really well. There would be no explaining what the band was. We talked with a lot of older producers with a longer track record who just didnt really get what we were about. So we honestly had to push to work with some of the producers. I think we were ready to go into the studio well before we actually went in the studio and we had to more or less fight for what we wanted. So Ewan and Paul worked as a team and we did some tracks with Danger Mouse.
DRE: Is Danger Mouse constantly worried that Jay-Z is going to jump him?
GA: Yeah. That was the biggest problem because we had to keep switching studios [laughs].
DRE: So you guys started the label called Throne of Blood, is that after the Akira Kurosawa movie?
GA: Its after a couple things. [drummer] Vito [Roccoforte] came up with it after a after a Prince Jammy record and I thought That works great because I love samurai movies and Kurosawa is the dude.
DRE: I read that you will only be releasing vinyls through Throne of Blood.
GA: We have the vinyl rights to our music and it is important for us to put out 12 inch singles. We wanted to do our own label for a while so were just starting off by releasing The Rapture single with remixes on 12 inch. Maybe down the line we will release other things like side projects and records by friends and people we like but I dont think we want to do any CDs because we dont really want the label to be too complicated because we are very busy.
DRE: Whats next?
GA: Were mostly concentrating on touring right now. Were probably going to be touring through the summer. Weve been working on some things but weve been on the road for three months so were trying to take a breather. We definitely have some songs already for the future. Well see what they turn into. I definitely would like to get back into the studio and get writing again sooner than later.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
The simian mobile disco remix of whoo alright is sooooo good.