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ON THE COUCH WITH: The Streets

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: Hey Mike, how’s it going?
Mike Skinner: Hey mate, i’m doing alright, just dealing with the great feeling that is jetlag, but besides that all is good. We have a show in Brisbane tonight which i’m getting ready for & it should be a good show, brisbane’s usually always a good show.

Access All Areas.net.au: You are currently in Australia touring with your band The Streets, how are things going so far?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, things have been great, we’ve only had 1 show so far which was Sydney last night, which was great. We’ve got the festival on the weekend & a bunch more shows to do so things are looking good.

Access All Areas.net.au: You are here touring on your fourth record “everything is borrowed”, which was released this past September, looking back how do you feel the material has been received?
Mike Skinner: Yeah i think it has been received really well, this was a different record to the last, but i like to try & make each record different.

Access All Areas.net.au: On the record, it seems to be a lot lighter lyrical content than what was previously served up, what made you choose to take this direction with the record?
Mike Skinner: Well i wanted to make a record that was happy & in good spirits, which can be very difficult to do sometimes, but i feel i got it done. I made a lot of choices in my lyrical creativity & came up with some songs which i feel are pretty good for the record.

Access All Areas.net.au: With the writing of material, i read you wrote a lot more songs than required & threw essentially the majority of the material out, leaving the record tracks, do you feel this method has helped you get the best record you were after?
Mike Skinner: Well personally, i feel you can create material, but it’s the choosing of the material which is most important. With creating songs, you can keep coming up with material until the cows come home, but if you don’t make the correct choice on which songs to use, then you don’t get the best songs you feel you are capable to put out on your records.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now mike i believe this record was self produced by yourself, can you tell me why you chose to do this & how you feel it has benefited your record?
Mike Skinner: Well i actually produce all my records, its what i’ve done from the first Streets record to the most recent. For this one, not only did i produce, but i mixed & mastered the record & had a lot of fun doing so. I guess a down point of doing this is the loss of having another set of ears to pick up where it may not be so good, but its part of being the artist to make your creation how you feel it is best & i’ve done that.

Access All Areas.net.au: The record is noted with your trademark UK hip-hop/garage/indie/grime style of music, do you feel you are still enjoying this music after so many years of playing it?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, i’m actually enjoying it more now then i ever have. I’m constantly not only enjoying playing it, but also creating it as i’m always working on my material. Its cause i’m always writing & creating that i can keep the passion i feel for rapping & i enjoy performing it.

Access All Areas.net.au: When you first started back in 2000 there was little of this style of music in the UK, of course today there is The streets, Dizzy Rascal, Wiley, Lady Sovereign to name a few, do you feel a level of satisfaction seeing where the music has progressed to which you helped pioneer?
Mike Skinner: Well to be honest, i don’t think i actually influenced anyone to be good rappers or mc’s, but i do feel i helped artists become successful. It was through my success with the Streets that showed rappers in the UK that it could be done & that it could be possible for them to make something out of their music. Of course, none of the success is without the fans & i thank them for everything i’ve ever had.

Access All Areas.net.au: Are there any artists you know of in the style that should be taken note of who the Australian audiences may not have seen or heard of yet?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, right now i’m really liking a grime mc by the name of Rinse, he’s doing some great things & isn’t really known by many, so keep an eye out for him in the near future.

Access All Areas.net.au: Now moving on, you have the rest of your tour coming up, are you excited to be getting around the country once again?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, i always love coming to Australia to play, we have a great bunch of fans down here who always make performing for them so worthwhile.

Access All Areas.net.au: Of course, you are also playing the Playground Weekender festival, are you looking forward to doing another Australian festival?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, well any time we get the opportunity for someone to want to bring us down to play a festival or just shows its a real blessing, as it doesn’t happen that much. I’m looking forward to this festival as there’s a good bunch of talent that will keep everybody happy, including myself.

Access All Areas.net.au: On the lineup, there a number of talented artists, are there any you are looking forward to seeing over the weekend?
Mike Skinner: I think i’m mainly excited to check out Crystal Castles, they’re really good so i’m hoping to see them at some stage.

Access All Areas.net.au: At the festival, what kind of set can the fans expect to see?
Mike Skinner: Basically just alot of shouting, screaming, a bit of singing & hopefully the crowd having a bloody good time.

Access All Areas.net.au: Being back here in the summertime for another festival, you would know how it gets hot, do you feel you know how to stay cool in the climate, or do you still struggle to deal with the summer heat?
Mike Skinner: Yeah, well right now i’m in an air conditioned room so it doesn’t effect me at the moment, but yeah i know how to deal with it. I’ve been here many times in the past, usually over summer so i know how hot it can get & how to deal with it.

Access All Areas.net.au: What tips or advice would you give to someone attending an aussie summer festival?
Mike Skinner: Basically just keep in mind what your day actually contains, it can be easy while at a festival to get distracted or lost & miss who you want to see, so basically just that & keep hydrated as it will be for your own good.

Access All Areas.net.au: Which artist would you say has been your favourite to see play at a festival?
Mike Skinner: I’d probably say Daft Punk, i saw them at the Wireless festival a few years ago & that was awesome.

Access All Areas.net.au: Which festival would you say has been your favourite to play?
Mike Skinner: I’d probably say Roskilda in Denmark, we did it a couple years back & the slot we got was a little after midnight & due to this we ended up playing to about 70,000 people, which was just amazing.

Access All Areas.net.au: What is happening for the streets in the near future, more touring?
Mike Skinner: Well not much really, i’m getting a new band lineup in a few weeks, besides that i’m just going to be heavily writing for the next streets record.

Access All Areas.net.au: Well Mike, it’s been awesome speaking with you, thankyou for your time & have a great tour.
Mike Skinner: Yeah, thanks mate, its been nice speaking with you, bye.

Interview by: Ben Coby.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

“My time on this earth is my only penny/ Wise is the gent counting every moment spent” - The Streets “everything is borrowed”

Seeing that the fourth Streets album is called everything is borrowed, and remembering the world-weary mood of its brutally honest predecessor, The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living, the wary listener could be forgiven for expecting a cynical expose of the second-hand nature of 21st century experience.

Guess again.

From its uplifting title-track - a euphoric meditation on how to make the best of life’s infinite possibilities – to the almost mystical finale, “The Escapist” (wherein Mike Skinner happily ponders the insignificance of “little, fleeting, momentary me” in the dappled sunlight of his “favourite tree”), everything is borrowed seems to be lit from within by a healing flame of optimism. Freed from celebrity hang-ups and savouring a thrilling rush of new-found perspective, Mike Skinner has made a record to console the lonely and bring a smile to the saddest visage. Warm-hearted, witty and utterly distinctive, this is music to help Britain through the credit-crunch.

To say it all started with Elton John would be a slight exaggeration, but the first real clue to where this album was going came with The Streets’ outstanding contribution to Radio 1’s (otherwise lamentable) 40th Birthday cover album. Determined to do something “really fucking wonky”, Skinner chipped in with a sincere and strangely moving version of Elton John’s “Your Song” – bringing new life to a familiar lyric with the most exquisitely plaintive and utterly English vocal you’ll hear this side of Robert Wyatt.

After a happy day working together in a Skegness studio, Wyatt actually made a cameo appearance as the wise old man in an early version of “On the Edge of a Cliff” (one of two metaphysical landmarks at the heart of the album). Skinner pronounces himself “gutted” that the bearded Humberside maverick ultimately got “lost in the edit”. But just as A Grand Don’t Come For Free presented its endearingly ramshackle humanist message within an unusual narrative framework, the new Streets album’s painstaking production process (“Writing film-scripts and turning them into pop songs” is how Skinner describes it) was the gateway to a new kind of creative freedom.

Going back to first principles is one thing. everything is borrowed finds Mike Skinner going back before first principles. Applying his homespun hip-hop sensibility to real instruments, rock history and theological inconsistency, he comes up with sing-a-long musings on such unconventional subjects as religion (“Alleged Legends”), evolution (“The Way of the Dodo”), biological destiny (“On the Edge of a Cliff”), and male friendship (“The Sherry End”). Blending rap’s capacity for cinematic story-telling with irresistible pop hooks, this album is UK hip-hop’s answer to Aesop’s Fables.

The first time people heard The Streets’ Mercury Prize-nominated debut Original Pirate Material, they couldn’t make their minds up whether the person making this music was black or white, from London or the Midlands, deadly serious or a total joker. We know who Mike Skinner is now (Or, at least, we thought we knew). So for him to have come up with a record which surprises and delights the listener as much as this one does is, if anything, an even more impressive achievement. everything is borrowed finds him not only rediscovering his old irrepressible buoyancy but sailing away on that trademark stop-start lyrical flow to waters no-one else has ever visited.

www.the-streets.co.uk

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

Behind Crimson Eyes
We did a festival in melbourne and it was a great. We got to hang out with Grinspoon and drink with those guys.

What are your tips for attending Music Festivals?Don't get drunk to quick. Pace yourself. So many people drink really quick at the start and it always ends up messy.

Favourite Music Festival?
I would have to say 'Big Day Out'. To any band it is great to be able to perform there its an honor. I was happy because when we did it 'Rage Against The Machine' were also playing that year and it was just one band I had always wanted to see play.

What's your ideal music festival line-up?Blink 182, Greenday and if I gould dig Jeff Buckley up, I would have him there to.

Favourite artist you’ve seen at a Music Festival?
Rage Against The Machine.