The Sheffield Scenester

Sheffield Scenester; How does the writing work then, do you just get together and one says I’ve got an idea?

Paddy; Well it’s not a cut formula, a lot of tracks will start with a riff from Dougie or something, like we’ll be in a studio and something will come from that…..
Dougie; It could be a drum beat and I’ll be like “What’s that drum beat there, that one....that one!?” and he’ll go “Something I was about to throw away” and I’ll go “No, No, No, No!”
Paddy; Or even myself on the piano, just starting with something simple…..
Dougie; Like just two notes and I’ll go “Oh yeah that’s wicked that!” The thing is we don’t know where it’s gonna be coming from, that’s something else about only being the three of us now...cos when it comes to getting paid out we decided that it doesn’t really matter who wrote what, we’ll all get the same. That way no one is thinking about anything else other than just writing the song, so it’s not a question of “I’m not gonna get paid unless I stick some of my crap on it”, it doesn’t matter, it’s a corporation, I mean I couldn’t do what I do without Paddy and Sophie doing what they do.

Sheffield Scenester; So what are you looking forward to do in the near future?

Paddy; Well we don’t want to continue with what we were doing and play in Sheffield all the time, without getting anywhere. We still want to play Sheffield, but we also want to get out there and play throughout the nation…..
Dougie; Sheffield can be a funny place, you start gigging, build up a following, you keep playing and all of a sudden your following has gone and you think “What happened there?” Other cities like Manchester they get into a band and they keep following them for years. I think with Sheffield you have to go out of Sheffield then come back until you become one of Sheffield’s own. It can be over-exposure as well, but that would be the bands fault, as they play all these small venues – then again you’ve got to learn your trade, cos the set you played isn’t gonna be the set you play six months down the line, you change it with how the audience reacts and work on it each time. So what we want to do is take that outside of Sheffield….
Paddy; Universities if we can, in the big cities…
Dougie; Then come back and do some decent sized big gigs in Sheffield, really promote them, really make it something!
Paddy; Another thing we want to do is get a CD out that we’re happy with, because we did that single release and didn’t even like the track we put out then! Now we’re getting happier with production and with more progression over the next few months, hopefully we can put out an EP.
Dougie; Put it out quite raw, maybe a live thing, we’re not waiting forever to get production exactly right, if it’s got a good vibe, put it out, don’t worry about it, it sounds a bit lo-fi but if people like it then great.
Sophie; We want to get into soundtracks as well...
Paddy; We’ve got a bit of interest from music supervisors who put music onto films, the soundtracks to movies.
Dougie; The one thing about us is that we are prolific, so much music, that’s the one thing we never have to worry about is actual writing. Really what we need is representation so we can just concentrate on the music, we don’t want to concentrate on booking gigs, sorting out this and that, so I think that would be quite helpful for us.

Sheffield Scenester; One last thing....are you re-working any of your old material?

Dougie; You know that’s a funny one cos it’s not really old stuff to me, we thought about that but when we played them in rehearsal it sounded like a bit of an anachronism really. You feel like they’re from then, almost like doing a cover version, like it’s pulling us back there. We tried ‘Be Aggressive’ and stuff and I’m still not sure if we should leave it behind completely but when we tried it….. If there’s certain tracks the audience really like then I’m not above bringing them in, I don’t want to be some kind of high brow who says “I know what you want to hear”.
Sophie; We thought we might do ‘Bend Those Rules’
Dougie; Yeah cos the audience have always liked that one.....!

Sheffield Scenester; It all sounds brilliant...thanks ever so much for your time!

Orange 38 will be performing at The Forum on Monday 21st June, they will also be involved with Tramlines at the end of July and samples of their new material is available to listen to on their MySpace page.