Homecut | Interview
3th May 2011 by SIR SNAF
Interviewed by Debian Blak and Sir Snaf
Words by Sir Snaf
Well known around Leeds, as the host with the most at New Bohemia, and internationally as a component in Shlomo's Vocal Orchestra, Homecut’s debut album, No Freedom Without Sacrifice, was released in late 2009 to widespread acclaim. In fact, if I had to make a list of my favourite hip-hop albums of that year, it’d be in my top 1.
With a new remix album on the way, How We Do caught up with Homecut for some Nando’s and knowledge - surely the most hip-hop of combo’s?
Can you introduce yourself please?
Hhhhuuuuurrrrrrggghh
Aah, don’t mess the mic up…
Hey this is Homecut, also known as Testament… Master of Ceremonies…. Jack of all Spades.
You’re about to go on stage, what can you tell us about tonight’s show?
Yeah, we’re going to do the full live band experience, working with these amazing musicians… The great thing about these guys is I can throw them a curve ball - in the sound check I was like, “lets do this track but flip it in a completely different way…” So there’ll be some moments that are completely spontaneous, which I love. We’ve toured to the point that we’ve got the main core of our set that we can do in our sleep and then I can say, “OK we’re going to do it samba it tonight…” and hopefully it still works and we won’t get beaten up.
It’s lovely to work with musicians like that, and we hope you don’t get beaten up tonight.. So, to define it more concisely, what is Homecut as a project? You’re Homecut, and the band is Homecut too, but does the band chop and change?
The band chops and changes who’s in it, though as an artist you want the same people as much as possible. Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield are just a pool of ridiculous musicians. I mean, the bassist for a long time was Kenny Higgins, who had to go off on tour with Corrine Bailey-Rae and just got back off a world tour. Meanwhile, stepping into his shoes is Hamlet Luton, who’s Nightmares on Wax and Finley Quaye’s bass player… The standard is just ridiculous, so I’m very very blessed to have a lot of people at my resources, people who will work with me even though I’m just a guy whose trying to get by through music.
So how does the creative process work?
Um, I play all the instruments. Not always with my hands, sometimes my feet…
A one man band setup?
Yeah, sometimes I use my torso
I heard that sometimes you just think the music, and it appears, is that right?
Haha, yeah sometimes! What I was going to say was, basically, when creating the album, the majority of stuff I had written on guitar or piano, or a riff I had in my head then sat down at a piano and programmed it and got live musicians to re-play it. The single, I Don’t Even Know, came out of a jam session with me and a studio engineer in Sheffield. I was at this really plush studio recording, mixing in fact, and on the tea break we went out – I was playing keys and he was playing drums, and I was like “Okay I play drums and you play keys”. Then he came up with this loop and I went “Hooo, go back to those two bars you played a minute ago and keep looping those two bars! I’ll run into the control room and press record!”
There’s two tracks on there, Bring it all Together and I Don’t Even Know which came out of those jams. Another track, with kidkanevil, which came out of me having this chord progression for absolutely ages, and he had this drum beat… We used to go round each others houses, still do in fact, and play each other the latest things we’re working on and critique it… and I’ll tell him he’s a no good lowlife… Then he stabs me in the eye… and then we become friends again
Sounds a bit of a brutal relationship….
It is, its tough… With someone who’s that low, and that despicable… His human rights record is just terrible
We hate kidk now…
Yeah, you can take some letters out of his name, and it spells anvil. Kind of sums it up.
Nice
Haha. Yeah, I mean the album was a real mad process. Some of it was collaborative, some of it was just me in my bedroom. Two tracks were just totally me in my bedroom. A track called Participant is just me, on the top floor of my house handclapping, trying to write a track in 12 hours and produce it and put it up on MySpace… And it ended up turning into Participant. Then the track with J-Live was pretty just all me, my Wurlitzer electric piano, a bit of bass, bit of this, bit of that… Then I gave the track to J-Live, and it came back and it just made it phat. Then I recorded Malcolm from the Haggis Horns and that finished that track off. It was heavy.
So how did the collaboration with J-Live first come about?
What actually happened was because of tonight’s venue, the glorious HiFi club. I was part of kidkanevil’s live show, before he decided I was a waste of space… I would actually never work with him again, what happened was I said “Look, you want me to do this show tonight, I will never work with you, not wearing those clothes…” Haha, no what happened was we were supporting J-Live and I got chatting… He knows Will Quantic, I know Quantic, and Quantic had just played me the track he’d done with J-Live… So I was like “That track you did with Quantic is sick” and we got talking. The funny thing is I said “Hey, I’d like to do a track with you” and he replied “Well, we’ll see how you do tonight, I’d like to see you perform live…”
No pressure then…
No pressure at all! Luckily, kidkanevil, Laura J, me and Pete Williams who heads up the Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra, the 4 of us in that project, luckily we’d just finished a whole tour of gigs and we were tight and really on it, and Leeds is our home crowd so we just.. we had fun. J-Live was impressed, and so then I just had to harass him, stalk him and threaten him, and it was fine - it all just came together.
The album has had some success, from the press…
The press has been amazing.. Like, really, literally, there hasn’t been a bad review… The worst was like “It’s OK”, so we’ve been very blessed
You haven’t read our review yet…
No, that’s a good point….
So what’s next?
Well, I’ve got a few projects on the go. I’m starting a production company with the engineer whose studio I used - the guy playing keys on I Don’t Even Know. I’m also starting up something called the Hip-Hop Clinic, which is about engaging young people with hip-hop in a positive way, in a way that changes society, using hip-hop to address issues in society and to really empower young people. The big thing is Homecut album number two... Then my life is changing quite considerably, starting a family next year, so we’ll see how that goes. The family thing I’m really looking forward to so the Homecut album will have to fit in around family commitments. Then there’s also a project called Blake 7, which will be well heavy. Taking 7 hip-hop emcees, 7 beatmakers and 7 graffiti artists – all British – to reinterpret 7 William Blake poems. So it’s a real conceptual thing, just trying to push the boundaries of art as much as possible as hip-hop.. Hip-hop as graff, as production, as lyricism, and push the boundaries of that as much as we can. The line up for that is shaping up to be rather exciting, but it’s all confidential and locked up! All I can say is there’s some serious, UK heavyweight emcee’s who will make you cry!
In a good way?
No, in a bad way!
And that’s all for 2011?
2011 going into 2012.. There’s also a remix album coming out, that’s almost done – No Freedom Without Sacrifice Remixed. So every track on the album, remixed by artists including DJ Vadim, Marc Mac from 4Hero, one from The Nextmen in the pipeline, some of the guys from Gentleman’s Dub Club have got a side-project and they’ve done a remix… Blue Daisy… kidkasleazebag, sorry kidkanevil... Riot Jazz over in Manchester are doing innovators… That’s just the tip of the iceberg, it’s beyond what I could have thought.
You mentioned the Hip-Hop Clinic, is the education side something you’re passionate about?
Yeah, I mean prancing around on stage saying “Look at me” is obviously a big motivation factor in my life, but hopefully we have an awareness that actually it’s not really about that. You know it is great to hopefully inspire people in the way that I’m inspired whenever I see my favourite artist or someone who speaks to me, and that’s my aim, but really it is a limited and finite form that feels a bit up itself… [posh art voice] “I want to reinterpret the works of William Blake in a 21st Century context and push the boundaries of the artform on…”
Haha, lucky we know you!
Yeah, I need a cravat you know! And some slippers… Why slippers? Anyway, there needs to be some actual getting down to earth, doing something that’s real, and working with young people, some crazy young people, and seeing their lives turned around. Disaffected youths, kids, who wouldn’t have that confidence, get confidence – that’s one of the things that hip-hop and music can do. Drama, when I was a kid - that transformed my life, my whole outlook on the world. So as well as doing that I’m linking it in with an organisation called Peace Jam that gets Nobel Peace Prize winners to work with young people, and between the two things hopefully we will actually be able to do something positive in this world.
Big things start from small things…
Well, yeah but small things are big things. Inspiring one kid not to be a bully and actually to realise that I can write poems and write raps, I can be good at English or, at home, be an emcee… That’s big. If my music career stops now, I have a few things I can be proud of - I can hold those with me. It’s all just the grace of God man, like who are we really? We’re all just people with opinions trying to build something. Hopefully we’re building in the right direction, and I think if we’re building next to each other then maybe something good can happen.
Deep, a lovely note end on. You’re on in ten minutes…
Yeah… maybe I should write my set list, you got any paper?
No Freedom Without Sacrifice Remixed is out later this year, on First Word Records
Homecut’s debut album No Freedom Without Sacrifice and the single I Don’t Even Know feat. Corinne Bailey-Rae & Soweto Kinch are out now, also on First Word Records.
Since going to press, Homecut and kidkanevil have both been arrested for crimes against humanity.
