Slo~Mo - Interview

26 July 2002

Slo -Mo
Slo -Mo - Interviewed
Slo-Mo are a band from Sheffield, already praised by the NME, David Gledhill the creator of the band took time out to talk to Contact Music about his new single Death Of A Raver and what he has planned for the future.

How are you doing? Any more plans for the day?

Well I've got a couple more interviews this afternoon but I'm not that prepared so I don't know who they are with, I'm going on a local radio tour next week and I've got to play songs acoustically which is a real pain in the arse as I haven't done them before so I've been madly running around getting things organized.


So how did you form into a band? Originally you started out by yourself.

I basically went out and bought a computer about 2 years ago and I'm more from a traditional guitar background then I got my computer and thought I would give it ago and then started getting into sampling different things.

I was recording songs in kind of a dance way seeing as I was recording in my bedroom and not in a studio, after making 2 or 3 songs I played them to my friends and everyone thought they were fantastic so I thought I ought to take the next step and get a band together and see if it works. I ended up doing the two things separately I did the recording of the album on my own in the bedroom and then playing live with the rest of the band but its been a blessing because it sounds so much different live than it does to the recorded versions.

Do you think that guitar bands recording on computers is going to take off??

Well yeah we're seeing more and more people getting into it, most musicians stick to what they know but after they try using a computer they prefer them to the more traditional studio recording.

What made you pick the sample you used on Death Of A Raver?

Well during the kind of "rave" period around the early to mid 90's when it was really kind of humongous I used to hang around with people that were into that scene and quite into their drugs and thing and everyone used to have a chill out CD and mine was an Astrid Gilberto CD that had that song on it, then about a week before I went out and bought my computer I was in a friends car and they were playing that song and I was sit in the back and I could hear a different song using that song I thought I'm gonna sample it and it worked really well, the original song is nothing like the way I have used it, it was in different keys different time .. everything!


Death Of A Raver is a powerful title could you just clarify the meaning?

Hahaha yea well to be honest with you nobody has quibbled with me as yet I kind of thought it may upset some people, the whole song is an observation about things that went on 10 years ago and the amounts of drugs that were going on with the people of that time, I never really participated as much as them I was more on the sidelines as these people kind of destroyed there brains and stuff, it just interests me to see these people now working 9 to 5 drinking beer and 10000 brain cells lighter so it's not really to do with someone going out and dieing it's got nothing to do with that, it's more the death of a time. It's worked out really weird you know with all the media going on about cream having to close down it's just really weird that it's happening as Death Of A Raver is coming out. I have always been quite a big fan of dance music in general, it was more against the negative things in that the time that were created it was such a crazy Fu**in' time. You can only see something when you have passed it for awhile. And now dance music is kind of dieing!

How do you feel about that you said you were quite a fan of that scene?

I'm a fan in the terms that I like Air and Daft Punk, I'm a fan of the innovators rather than the people who take that on and make more money from it, I don't really feel dance music will die I just think everything comes in cycles music always work in cycles, I think it will just go through a difficult time.


So how is the album coming along?

Yeah it's pretty much finished we are just juggling the tracks around and it should be out next February I think it's gonna be a special record I've almost killed my self recording it trying to put all the best stuff I could possibly do on to the record, so there has been a high level of quality control used.

Have you used any more samples on the album?

Yes, I've used one other sample on it, I did have a couple of other samples but then I found out how expensive it was! But the next single that comes out in October is called Girl From Alaska and that has got another sample on it by the same guy that wrote the Astrid Gilberto sample. But the next single is a bit more twisted and darker than Death of a Raver.


Who have you worked with on the Album producer wise?

Me basically, I kind of did it in my bedroom which is basically like a box room and I gave the masters to the record company and thought I hope they don't ask me to re-master is or engineer it or work with a producer and they said yea it's great. I have to admit I was a little insecure about it cause I wasn't sure if it was good enough but then my record company did a press for garbage and one day I got a phone call from Butch Vig from Garbage who's the drummer who produced Nevermind and he said that he really loved my tunes and he thought the recordings were fantastic, as soon as I heard that from him I thought well it must be ok so I didn't worry anymore. It gave me a lot more flexibility I suppose the only draw back is the sort of thing that you get with working with a band in a rehearsal room but this way it's great because I get that as well.

When you play live do you try and emulate what you have created in the studio or are you a lot more willing to adapt things?

Well on some of the stuff we do and some we don't I would say the general rule was that everything gets a lot heavier when we play live and more dynamic when we play live, we still use some of the samples and loops on backing mini disk but we generally just rock out on everything a bit more. People tend to love it as well the difference from the live sound to the recorded sound. I think you have to capture something different in the studio and it's like Death of a Raver, I've had so many people from studios saying to me what kind of compressors did you use on that and which live room did you use on that but there isn't any of that it's just me being a bit more creative with a computer.

What tips would you give to unsigned artists choosing software to use?

Well I actually don't think that the software is that important and by that I mean there are so many different packages like logic, cubase, pro-tools and I have used all of them and I don't find there is too much difference between all of them. I Guess my biggest tip to an artist recording in this is don't ever let the software control you, the software is only a tool it can't write a song for you it can't make you sing properly it cant make people move emotionally. A lot of my friends that write music with software spend twiddling around with all the effects and pissing around. That's my biggest tip, at the end of the day it's the songs that you make that are important and the lyrics are important I don't think anyone gives a sh*t about how you have recorded it. When I'm mixing down I always turn off the monitor because you shouldn't be looking at anything really.

Have you got any plans for a tour?

Yeah we have got some plans no one has filled me in on who we are supporting as yet but as far as I know we are touring in October and November and I'm sure there will be some more bits and bobs going on around that time.

If you want to catch Slo-Mo before October they are headlining at the Monarch in London on the 12th of August.

Contactmusic

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