Filthy Dukes are the ringmasters of one of the nation’s favourite club nights, have just released a critically acclaimed single and have just completed their debut album. On the eve of their first live set at Digital, Helen Bosher catches up with the effervescent Tim Lawton, Olly Dixon and Mark Ralph.
Tonight sees you playing for “Wax:On” at Digital Brighton, along with Erol Alkan. You’re playing a live set – what can we look forward to?
Tim: Thrills and spills!
Olly: It’s very “live”. Coming from being DJs, people expect us to be a couple of guys with laptops making heavy, gnarly dance music, but in fact we make POP music and we are a real band: bass, electronic percussion, guitar, Moogs, synths, and Isaac is our drummer.
Tim: Thrills and spills!
Olly: It’s very “live”. Coming from being DJs, people expect us to be a couple of guys with laptops making heavy, gnarly dance music, but in fact we make POP music and we are a real band: bass, electronic percussion, guitar, Moogs, synths, and Isaac is our drummer.
Your night, “Kill ‘Em All”, has been such a success, and played host to some influential artists. I know you are supposed to love all your children equally, but who have been your favourite guests?
Tim: WhoMadeWho – amazing, such a fun band.
Mark: They’re great live, they have an album out in the new year.
Olly: I don’t have a favourite, we’ve been doing this for five years now, starting off at the Barfly, then we went to Fabric about three years ago. One night was insane; we had Justice’s first live show in London unannounced, Santogold played live, Crystal Castles played live, the Teenagers played live, the Chemical Brothers DJ’d, James Murphy DJ’d, we DJ’d, and some others that I forgot…that was pretty amazing.
Tim: WhoMadeWho – amazing, such a fun band.
Mark: They’re great live, they have an album out in the new year.
Olly: I don’t have a favourite, we’ve been doing this for five years now, starting off at the Barfly, then we went to Fabric about three years ago. One night was insane; we had Justice’s first live show in London unannounced, Santogold played live, Crystal Castles played live, the Teenagers played live, the Chemical Brothers DJ’d, James Murphy DJ’d, we DJ’d, and some others that I forgot…that was pretty amazing.
Your debut single, ‘Tupac Robot Club Rock’ is out now to download, it’s been Radio 1’s “Single of the Week” on Sara Cox’s show, you’ve been “New band of the day” in The Guardian. Is it sinking in yet?
Olly: It’s weird, when we started off as DJs, we never really had a plan, we never thought in five years time we would like to be in a gold concrete tunnel at Digital with the rain lashing at the front door! You get signed, it’s exciting. You finish an album, it’s exciting. You release a single, it’s exciting, but you never have time to lay back by your guitar-shaped swimming pool and enjoy it….I think we will probably all be asleep tomorrow when the single charts!
Olly: It’s weird, when we started off as DJs, we never really had a plan, we never thought in five years time we would like to be in a gold concrete tunnel at Digital with the rain lashing at the front door! You get signed, it’s exciting. You finish an album, it’s exciting. You release a single, it’s exciting, but you never have time to lay back by your guitar-shaped swimming pool and enjoy it….I think we will probably all be asleep tomorrow when the single charts!
The burning question on everybody’s lips is… ‘What is Tupac Robot Club Rock?’
Olly: Plastic Little loved the track, we got them in the studio. There were three of them: Jon (Folmar), Kurt (Hunte) and their DJ Si Young, who was rapping in the background, “This is Tupac Robot Club Rock”. We went, “Oooh, hang on a minute, we need a chorus!” Jayson (Musson) in the end delivered it. There’s a lot of reference to fabled characters and pop references in their rap. In a way it sums up the sound of the track as well – robots have a Daft Punk feel, there are punky electro-synth lines, hip-hop bits, although none of us are particularly fans of Tupac!
Tim: You’ve got your rocky sampled, proggy style.
Olly: Even though every track on the album has a different character, this track brings all our influences together.
Olly: Plastic Little loved the track, we got them in the studio. There were three of them: Jon (Folmar), Kurt (Hunte) and their DJ Si Young, who was rapping in the background, “This is Tupac Robot Club Rock”. We went, “Oooh, hang on a minute, we need a chorus!” Jayson (Musson) in the end delivered it. There’s a lot of reference to fabled characters and pop references in their rap. In a way it sums up the sound of the track as well – robots have a Daft Punk feel, there are punky electro-synth lines, hip-hop bits, although none of us are particularly fans of Tupac!
Tim: You’ve got your rocky sampled, proggy style.
Olly: Even though every track on the album has a different character, this track brings all our influences together.
You have a new album, “Nonsense In The Dark”, coming out in March. It features a collaboration with Brighton’s own Orlando Weeks, (the Maccabees). Can you give XYZ an exclusive on the full line up of album collaborators?
Tim: There are nine vocal tracks…
Olly: 10. Tim sings on one, then there are nine others.
All: Secret Machines, To My Boy, Sam from Late of the Pier, Orlando from the Maccabees, Mauro from Sunny Day Sets Fire, FrYars, Foreign Island, Tommy (Sparks), and Plastic Little.
Tim: There are nine vocal tracks…
Olly: 10. Tim sings on one, then there are nine others.
All: Secret Machines, To My Boy, Sam from Late of the Pier, Orlando from the Maccabees, Mauro from Sunny Day Sets Fire, FrYars, Foreign Island, Tommy (Sparks), and Plastic Little.
It’s been a whirlwind year for Filthy Dukes. What have been your highlights?
Tim: Getting the album finished!
Olly: Bestival. It was good for us ‘cos no-one knew our records. It wasn’t raining when we were playing at 4.30pm, yet we still managed to fill the tent.
Tim: It was massively busy.
Olly: It was a baptism of fire because Tim and I had come from DJing, only Mark had done live shows. The first gig we got booked for was Glasto, so we were like, ‘Oh shit, we had better be quite good’. By the time it was Bestival it was our 12th show, so we were more confident, we were a band now. People liked our music, it wasn’t like, “Oh God, people are actually dancing!”
Tim: Getting the album finished!
Olly: Bestival. It was good for us ‘cos no-one knew our records. It wasn’t raining when we were playing at 4.30pm, yet we still managed to fill the tent.
Tim: It was massively busy.
Olly: It was a baptism of fire because Tim and I had come from DJing, only Mark had done live shows. The first gig we got booked for was Glasto, so we were like, ‘Oh shit, we had better be quite good’. By the time it was Bestival it was our 12th show, so we were more confident, we were a band now. People liked our music, it wasn’t like, “Oh God, people are actually dancing!”
What are your plans for next year?
Mark: The new album.
Olly: A lot of hard work on the gig front, a European tour in January, Snowbombing, remixes, promos for the singles coming out. We have also started “Kill ‘Em All” as a record label, we’ll have releases coming from that throughout the year.
Mark: The new album.
Olly: A lot of hard work on the gig front, a European tour in January, Snowbombing, remixes, promos for the singles coming out. We have also started “Kill ‘Em All” as a record label, we’ll have releases coming from that throughout the year.
Have you thought about “Kill ‘Em All” t-shirts as well?
Olly: We did one once! We could do our own t-shirts and launch a perfume range, “Eau De Dukes”.
Tim: “Eau de Filthy”
Olly: We did one once! We could do our own t-shirts and launch a perfume range, “Eau De Dukes”.
Tim: “Eau de Filthy”
Filthy Dukes debut single ‘Tupac Robot Club Rock’ is available for download and as limited edition vinyl now. www.myspace.com/filthydukes
Words by Helen Bosher
Photography by Nick Dodd
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