The Sheffield Scenester

Sophie

Paddy

Dougie

Sheffield Scenester has long been a fan of Orange 38 and since they fell off the radar last year...we have often wondered what happened? Recently through murmurs around town and the addition of several new tracks on their MySpace page, hinted that they were ready to come out from the cold. So Sheffield Scenester were given the pleasure of an interview down at The Lescar on a warm Saturday lunchtime. Arriving unfashionably early we waited in the beer garden, Dougie and Paddy arrived first, Paddy looking almost unrecognisable with a pretty decent mop of hair, while Sophie, who by now was sporting a brunette hairstyle, was at the bar getting the drinks as well as a plate of nachos. Once settled down we turned our attention to what they’d been up to recently and where they were going with it all;

Sheffield Scenester; You’ve been off the scene for quite a while now, so what’s been happening?

Paddy; Its been about six months since we’ve done a gig, maybe even longer, but we’ve mainly been focusing on studio stuff, been locked in there looking at what we want from music as opposed to just rehearsing and getting it out there which is what we used to do....
Dougie; Yeah I think really we’re putting a lot more thought into what we want to do, what we want from the music, what we actually want to get across to the audience, how we want the audience to react to us and we decided we actually wanted to see them jumping and dancing about, having a good time and kicking off, so we decided we wanted to do much more danced based music really. Not that we want to be a dance band as such but we want the dance beat, we want grooves but still songs…..always songs!
Paddy; We got a lot more electronic beats now as opposed to just drums which is what we used to have….
Dougie; Also the band is us three now, we got a drummer playing with us too...but really we’re gonna keep it to us three and everything else we’re gonna do electronically, backing tracks, sample vocals and stuff because we’ve realised we find it real easy to do it as a three piece…..
Paddy; Trying to get seven people...the logistics...and other people’s ideas...it can get messy when you want to get results quickly.

Sheffield Scenester; I was going to ask you about that, now you’re a smaller band...

Dougie; Well it’s much more direct...we (indicating himself, Paddy and Sophie)...all three get on really well together and we work really well, we kinda get stuff done like that. Also cos we work really fast we have time to do stuff, decide we don’t like it, get rid of it and do something else! When there are seven of you it’s a much slower process, I mean anything by democracy is a slower process; it’s got to be a dictatorship!
Sophie; It became a case of ‘too many cooks’ really didn’t it…..
Paddy; I think we were quick to get stuff done in the past without really delving into the tracks, cos we were limited to only so many rehearsals and we didn’t really have the recording facilities, we didn’t have time to sit down and work out the parts…
Dougie; It was quality control really; we couldn’t delve into stuff and find out what the track really had to say….
Sophie; I think since getting our own recording done we’ve learnt to write better songs as well really, whereas before we wrote in rehearsals together and now we just record it and do it that way round…..
Dougie; Yeah then keep working on it and refining it.
Paddy; We’ve been to other people who have recorded it and not been happy with the results…..
Dougie; Yeah, with the producers...we were never happy with whatever spin they put on it, we haven’t met a producer yet that augments what we do, instead of overlapping and putting their spin on what we do, so we’ve had to do it ourselves!
Sophie; We like it quite raw don’t we, it keeps the energy….
Paddy; You’ve got to have that character to it…..
Dougie; If you get it too polished and too pop there’s nothing left, you’re left with white sugar and we want Demerara!

Sheffield Scenester; With the new material, how does it differ from previous Orange material, cos we’ve noticed that Sophie has taken more vocals?

Sophie; Yeah, we’ve got more tracks coming up where Paddy is doing more of them too, it just happens that we did a batch with me first.
Paddy; There’s a lot more variety in our tracks now, we’ve got some slow ones that are danceable…
Dougie; And also from the early days it would be like Paddy doing a verse and then Sophie coming to do a chorus and we don’t want that now, if some of the songs have that and they work like that, then great
Paddy; It was like a recording recipe for every song, it was repetitive, the same formula….
Sophie; But it’s more dynamic now...
Dougie; Yeah...it’s a lot more dynamic, we really think about what the songs are trying to convey definitely from a rhythmic point of view.

Sheffield Scenester; So..is it a new Orange 38?

Sophie; We have been around for a while, but I think this new band is literally six months old and I think this is where we want to be, I think bands are like trial and error. I mean we have been doing this for three years now but this definitely is the best.
Dougie; Yeah…definitely the best incarnation…But I feel it has been a progression, if we think of doing something that’s not as good as we’ve done before, what’s the point – it has to be a forward progression!

Sheffield Scenester; So how do you think your fans will take to the new Orange 38?

Dougie; On MySpace and stuff it’s gone down really well…
Paddy; We seem to be getting some good feedback, it is different but it will appeal to the same people as well as new people..
Sophie; I think this time around it’s going to get a lot more broad spectrum of interest, I think it’s still us it’s just that it’s a bit cooler, it’s got more to it, it’s got more elements of everything in it now, it’s not just one niche sound.
Dougie; None of it is contrived, it comes out how it comes out, then that’s us at the moment.

Sheffield Scenester; So what influences do you have when you write?

Paddy; It’s just what we are, just an inspiration inside I suppose...
Dougie; I’ve always had eclectic tastes in music, I mean I were into punk like, Clash, The Damned and Pistols, they were bands I were really into cos I grew up on a completely white estate, we were the only black family on our estate, so I used to get influenced by the white music that was around, and of course the black music that came from my dad. So from that I can listen to any music and find what I like, it doesn’t matter what genre it is, it’s either good or it’s bad! Even country and western has a good choice of songs that I rate, Dolly Parton has written some songs that are just genius.
Sophie; I think that’s why we find it hard to describe ourselves, because we all like so much stuff from opera to dance.
Dougie; Whatever the influences we’ll take them on board, whatever filters through our brains cos we still write fairly quickly, the initial concept comes really quickly….. The thing is I don’t make music for myself, I make it for other people to want to listen to and that’s a big part of it.
Sophie; We still have to be commercial though don’t we?
Dougie; Yeah but I still want people to get really into it, I don’t want to be this underground noise were five people have got the album...but God, did they like it! Ha hahaa!