Steve Mizek

After the demise of the British band Simian, James Ford and James Shaw regroup as the roving DJ/production duo, Simian Mobile Disco, playing the Empty Bottle September 18. The debut album, "Attack Decay Sustain Release," moves effortlessly through rave bonanzas, electro ballads and energetic rump-shakers. Mr. Shaw took a few moments of studio time to chat.

While James Ford was producing bands like Klaxons and the Arctic Monkeys, what were you working on? Would you want to produce bands?

Before Mobile Disco went full-time, producing was something we fit in between other projects. Now we still have to do the same thing to get in the studio. I’ve hermitted myself away, got a couple new drum machines, hooked up the synth and just been making wiggly noise. When we’re traveling, I’ll take a laptop, which works well as a sketch pad. But I don’t like the sound of anything done on a laptop; sounds a bit shiny and mechanical. I’ve had a little taste [of producing bands] and I really enjoyed it, actually. But I find myself saying "no" to quite a lot of stuff, because unless I feel strongly about it I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to do something just for the sake of it, I want to do it because I think I can add something to it and it’s something really good. What I don’t want to do is just another fucking indie band.

Do you ever yearn to be in a band again or has producing electronic music spoiled you to that?

It’s definitely true. DJing and producing is super fun; you can make so much more stuff very quickly. But equally, I love being in a band, though I don’t know if I’d want to tour as a band again. I definitely miss recording.

When you are performing live, do you prefer DJing or a live P.A. style? Anything in mind for Chicago?

The live show’s turned out to be really good fun. We took tips from DJing and made it so we can change it a lot; we can totally change the structure. But as with all proper touring, a live show is hard work. We’re taking a massive chunk of our studio out on the road, it’s always an early sound check, very late gig, so it’s pretty grueling. As a foil against that, DJing is just super fun and easy. You walk to the club a couple hours before, check out some other DJs, get some drinks in, maybe see a band. I think if we just did live shows we’d be totally burned out.

Is your Chicago gig a live show?

Yeah, it is. The way we do it is, we set up most of the studio on the stage on a road table. We’ve got a modular synth, an analog synthesizer and a mixing desk. We try to tailor it to the crowd. We did some shows for NME at the beginning of the year and that was super indie kids, so we played really up-front, short edits of the all tracks, but in Berlin it was no vocals, dubbed out and playing about a quarter of the tracks we normally would. I’ve only been to Chicago once before, so I can’t predict what the crowd or our set will be like.

Mr. Ford has been quoted saying that bad songs are far easier to remix. With that in mind, which tune was the hardest and which was the easiest to remix?

We did a remix for Inner City of "Big Fun" just to see how Kevin Saunderson made it. That was one of the…less good remixes we’ve done, because we didn’t tear it to pieces. Whenever we send a track out to be remixed and we get it back and it sounds the same, we’re like, "C’mon, tear it to pieces. We want you to do your thing." For me, that’s the mark of a good remix—when you tear it to pieces. One easy remix was for Peaches’ "Downtown," because her voice fits so easily over electronic stuff.

So besides this long tour you’re on, what can we expect from Simian Mobile Disco in the next year or so?

Quite a few tours. We’re doing Europe with the Chemical Brothers and Japan with Underworld, both of which I’m pretty excited about. We’ve got a couple of really good production things lined up, individually and together. Then we have time to come up with some ideas and look at the live show, and by that time it’s summer-festival season. We’re pretty busy!

Well, I look forward to seeing you in Chicago.

You know, the last time we were in Chicago I had the best piece of pizza. It was ridiculous, it was literally inches thick.

Yeah, we’re famous for our deep dish pizza. Sometimes I’m amazed we’re not all morbidly obese.

(Laughs) I’m in man, I’m in. Let’s go for a slice.

Simian Mobile Disco performs September 18 at Empty Bottle, (773)276-3600, at 9pm. $12.

(2007-09-11)

Also by Steve Mizek

Tip of the Week
In the era of the blogger-turned-celebrity, it was only a matter of time before mp3 bloggers would join musicians on the road as live acts themselves. The Fluokids, a collective of seven French taste-makers and promoters, have already made it to the top of the music blog pile with their neon-hued site that launched in 2005
(2007-09-04)

Windsor Whimsy
Growing up in Windsor, Ontario in the eighties, Marc Houle was enthralled with the era’s signature sounds, especially those found in video games and his Casio keyboard
(2007-08-14)

Tip of the Week
In techno, as in rock ‘n’ roll, there will always be a handful of true believers who favor the old to the new and use near-ascetic methods when crafting music. New York trio Prototype 909 was of that mindset
(2007-07-24)

Step Up
Does dubstep stand a chance in America? A small, devoted group of fans and producers are eager to find out, as they attempt to bring the largely British genre to the Windy City
(2007-07-02)

Every Little Thing
(2007-06-26)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment