Small Nuggets of Electro-Candy

Three-piece outfit Eskimo Disco have been entertaining an ever-growing crowd with their infectious brand of upbeat playing their infectious party music for years.

Liton Ali

They have supported a host of big names including the Arctic Monkeys, The Rakes, The Subways and Mint Royale.If you aren't familiar with them, you may know their music from the 2006 video of Pingu and family dancing to their single 7/11.

An extremely well-connected band, their second big single "What is Woman?" was produced by Appollo 440's Howard Gray. They recently finished recording their debut album "Robots And Laptop Dancers Make Good Friends", which comes out later in 2007. We were too excited about the band to wait for the release so we interviewed them backstage at a recent gig. Look out for a video feature later this year.

Canvas: The much awaited single What is Woman was a big hit in the clubs, what inspired it?

Scott: The concept of the song is its an alien’s perspective of earth. They might work out everything, but ‘what is woman’ is one question too much. There is an old Roger Waters song about alien anthropologists analysing earth and I think it’s a great song. That’s where the rough idea came from.

Canvas: Your biggest single to date 7/11 may be most famous for its video which stars Pingu and his friends. How on earth did that happen?

Liam: It was actually down to our manager, Geoff. He came up with the concept that Eskimo Disco and Pingu would match. Scott sent an e-mail to them saying we would love to work with them, expecting never to hear from them, but they came back saying they would love to do something! They spent five weeks animating the video; it’s never been done before.

Canvas: And Pingu's not a bit young for your band's market?

Tom: I love Pingu and I always watched it as a student.

Liam: Pingu is aimed at quite a big demographic in terms of viewers and we wanted to push it a bit further.

Tim: And he was 21 this year! So we were doing it for his birthday.

Scott: We’ve got the boybands to compete with as well; they appeal to a young audience and we were thinking “how can we undercut them?”

Tom: Get in there really early before they're McFly fans!

Canvas: After the Pingu video your fans have been avidly anticipating the next piece of audio-visual genius. Where did the visual side of it go?

Scott: There's no video for What is Woman and it was a limited edition single.

Liam: We got some great remixes by Fred Falke for the more dancey market and Barry from Clor for the more indie market. We wanted to focus more on the song this time. The video from the last one was so exceptional that it was the main focus and we wanted to bring it back to the music.

Canvas: Except for the viral spread of the 7/11 video, how has the internet changed the way you do things?

Scott: We have to thank MySpace for a lot of ou remix artists; it’s a great way to communicate.

Tom: It’s great because everyone gets involved and becomes part of the fold.

Liam: Although we're starting to go off it. It’s so saturated with adverts and bullshit that there’s no room for comments! It’s no longer about “I really like your music” it’s all about “do you want a bigger dick.”

Canvas: So what’s the next resort for trendy, young, up and coming bands if the rumours are true and MySpace has had its day?

Liam: Vaio Nation. It’s a blogging site for music artists. It’s something that we did with Sony; we did a performance and they asked us to come back and blog.

Tom: I think it’s more of a grown up Myspace and we were one of the first acts to be involved. We played a great show the other day with some great acts.

Scott: Playing live is where it’s at. Whatever is supporting that is where we are aiming. Now that people can download music for free, it’s kind of falling apart; the only thing you can’t butcher is the live performance.

Bands that do well now just have to have a great live performance. So we just need to concentrate on live shows and keep touring.

Canvas: Eskimo Disco are so down to earth they let their fans into their intimate album launch parties. How hard is it to stay focused on the fans when you have people like Sony knocking on your door?

Liam: When you play gigs like tonight you can really appreciate the fans. There is stuff going on in London all the time and they come specifically to see you. That’s why we’re really doing it rather than banging on record companies doors and having big mansions.

Liam: We’ve done the album ourselves, off our own backs; we want to keep as much control as we can.

Tom: The more in control we are the better we can do.

Scott: The music is better because it’s not diluted by management. With record labels they’ll say: that’s your song, now do 20 of them. We’re never going to do that. I thnk each song and album we do is directed in a certain way; they have a point to them.

Tom: We’re relevant now; we never tried to be, but we are.

Liam: We don’t follow trends, it’s just about writing the music we want to write.

Canvas: Talking of trends, why aren't you wearing the trademark boiler suits any more?

Liam: People kept commenting on them, and it started to become more about the boiler suits than the music.

Scott: We did a gig a couple of months ago where we didn’t wear them and people came up to us saying: wow, you guys can really play. So we thought, ok, we’re not doing ourselves any favours here.

Tim: But we’re not saying we won’t wear them again!

Canvas: I’ve heard so many descriptions of your music. People seem to have trouble putting you in a pigeon- hole. You've been compared to Depeche Mode and even Junior Senior. Just to clarify it for all of us, how do you describe your band when you're talking to your granny?

Tom: I was asked that last week! George Gershwin mixed with…it’s a bit awkward with my granny!

Scott: Small nuggets of electrocandy?

Liam: Our sound is so varied it’s hard to describe. One song sounds like 10cc, then one is like Daft Punk, but then another is like Donna Summers. We’re trying to take the best from everything and try to make something different.

Scott: It’s really easy now that you can make music on your laptop in your bedroom. Its easy to get the sounds going and say: wow, this is a great song. It’s what a lot of people do. I know that’s how I started. I stopped playing guitar and singing and started playing with sounds and that’s great to a certain degree, but if you want to perform it and want to make something that will appeal in 20 years then you have to be able to perform it acoustic.

Canvas: Does your typical songwriting session involve a laptop in the bedroom or do you bring the instruments out?

Liam: We just get together in a studio and just jam.

Scott: There is no single route. There might be a melody in your head for days, or a whole song just comes out there and then. We have just made it up as we have gone along before

Liam: because there is no hierarchy in the band we are all equal and have our own say. It means that its not just one person leading it.

Canvas: You all seem to get on really well; what bonds you all together?

Tom: The first thing is obviously music.

Scott: I think we’re not driven by ego, we’re doing it because we love music. And we’ve been in bands where that isn’t the case. So we know how bad it can be. So we enjoy that we don’t have that character in the band caning us. Which means we all get on with it and anything goes!

Eskimo Disco play the Secret Garden Party on the 26th July 2007.
www.eskimodisco.co.uk
www.myspace.com/eskimodisco