ShockHound

Of all electronic music’s various phyla, breakbeat seems to produce the biggest crop of artists with rock star complexes. Not prima donna behavior, mind you — just a general dissatisfaction with performing simply via laptop and/or decks. Hybrid, Überzone, and Adam Freeland are just a few of the notable names that, at one point or another, have opted for the freedom and impact of a band over a more predictable DJ set-up. On select dates this summer, Brighton duo Evil Nine will take a four-piece on the road to promote They Live!, their second full-length on Freeland’s Marine Parade label. For a live PA, it’ll be a particularly undead affair.
    With tracks like “Feed On You,” “Dead Man Coming,” “Born Again,” and “Twist The Knife,” Evil Nine’s Pat Pardy and Tom Beaufoy have created a zombified romp through breakbeat’s netherworld, stacking thick, processional beats over low slung Fender basslines and evolving pads to create a decidedly spooky atmosphere. Each of the album’s 13 tracks share commonalities, both musically and conceptually, so guest vocals by David Autokratz, Toastie Taylor, Beans, Seraphim, Emily Breeze, and Def Jux CEO El-P (who appears on the single “All The Cash”) do a lot to expand the texture of the album. There’s also a fair bit of cheekiness in the mix that makes They Live! a more entertaining affair than their debut, You Can Be Special Too.
    ShockHound rendezvoused with Pardy and Beaufoy at Adam Freeland’s LA homestead to discuss, among other things, the cinematic impact (and relatively new phenomenon) of running zombies.

SHOCKHOUND: The phrase comes with a lot of baggage, but would you label They Live! as a "concept album"? You’ve got the zombie theme throughout, and both of the album’s videos share similar elements.

BEAUFOY: I think it’s a loose concept album, or more of a statement of where we were at and what we were getting into at the time. I don’t think it’s necessarily a unified story that’s all about zombies.

SHOCKHOUND: The beats have more of a processional feel to them; much less rolling than earlier tracks like “Crooked.”  Were those particular tracks favored before the concept came about, or did the theme inform the production from the start?

PARDY: I think they ran in parallel really. They work so well together with that classic zombie march. It’s almost like the old films like Ben-Hur, where you’ve got slaves marching and things like that.

BEAUFOY: It’s our own version of 4/4, that boom clack! I think we’ve always liked that head-noddy vibe. We’re not into too much fancy beat action.

SHOCKHOUND: You save the flare for the fills.

PARDY: I think it makes them a lot more special when they come along.

SHOCKHOUND: What are your favorite zombie films?

BEAUFOY: Zombie has gotta be there. That’s a really old crazy zombie movie. The soundtrack was by a guy called Fabio Frizzi. We sampled it on the track called “Dead Man Coming.”

PARDY: All the Living Dead movies as well: Night Of, Day Of, Return Of…

BEAUFOY: All the ones that have "Dead" in them. [Laughs]

SHOCKHOUND: What about 28 Days Later?

BEAUFOY: I think that’s a really good modern zombie movie, definitely. I’m a fan of that one.

PARDY: It’s the movie that brought running zombies to the forefront! It doesn’t generally make sense, zombies moving very, very slowly. You can easily run away from them or trip them up or stroll at a medium pace and you’ve won. Running zombies is a whole new concept.

BEAUFOY: There’s kind of a big debate in England about this, actually. There’s a guy called Charlie Brooker who did a zombie TV series called Dead Set [where] zombies take over the country and the people stuck inside this Big Brother house don’t know what’s going on outside. [Brooker] has running zombies in it, and [Shaun Of The Dead co-writer] Simon Pegg did a big article in the paper saying that he loved the show, but he thought it was terrible that he used running zombies.



ADAM FREELAND: [In the background] Oh my God, are you Evil Nine?! I love your records!

BEAUFOY: [Laughs] That’s Adam.

SHOCKHOUND: Between artists like Adam, Hybrid, and Uberzone, breakbeat seems to be a genre where artists consistently buck the DJ format in favor of something band-driven. Why do you think that is?

BEAUFOY: I suppose the loose term “the breaks” is not as stifling a concept. You’ve got a lot of freedom within what people see as breaks, and these are artists who make their own thing.

PARDY: I think most people who sit in the studio half the day want to get out there and play live. You get bored stuck in the studio. You want to get out there and be a rock star.

SHOCKHOUND: Do you think Big Beat will ever come back?

BEAUFOY: The Baltimore thing is kinda like that, with Diplo, Flosstradamus, and Tittsworth. Using all the old breaks again with loads of ravey samples and hip-hop production thrown in. It’s like the new wave of Big Beat.

SHOCKHOUND: How did your relationship with the Def Jux guys come about?

BEAUFOY: Just because we love their music so much. When it came to the first album, we had our wish list of people we’d like to work with and Aesop Rock was basically the first name on the list. We contacted his manager to see if he was open to the idea and he completely was. With El-P, his production has been a mad influence on our work. We were hanging out with him at Coachella he was completely open to working with us. Those guys are pretty open-minded. They’re open to trying something that’s new for them as well as for us. We had talked about us doing guest production for El-P on his next album.

PARDY: We have quite a specific production style and process, but apparently El-P works in a very similar way to us. We’ve often spent one afternoon doing a single drum fill, where the rest of the track maybe took us two days.

SHOCKHOUND: What can people expect to see on this tour?
 
BEAUFOY: It’s just me playing CDs, and Pat has got Ableton running, playing samples and synths on top of my records. He’s just jamming along with what I’m doing.

SHOCKHOUND: But don’t you also have a live set-up with bass and drums?

PARDY: We do, yeah. We have a four-piece live band which is Tom playing bass and me playing keyboards and other bits, plus a drummer and a vocalist called Juice Aleem who’s from our first album. We also do little bits of vocals as well, but nothing to write home about.

SHOCKHOUND: What are your favorite things to do in LA when you’re not playing?

BEAUFOY: At the moment, eat fish tacos and sit in Adam Freeland’s garden listening to chiming bells…

PARDY: …and smoking weed.

BEAUFOY: And smoking weed.

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