Just before Christmas Cheese on Toast talked with Robbie Furze from The Big Pink on the phone from London. He was excited about is upcoming holiday in Nicaragua, and, of course the imminent release of their sophomore album Future This which is produced by Paul Epworth.
In speaking about their final decision to continue to work with Paul (they had toyed with the idea of other producers), Robbie told me “Paul’s a genius – he’s an old school producer” and that “He knew where we wanted to take the second record from the first.” At the beginning of last year, the Big Pink were quoted as saying the new record would sound more “hip-hop” than the first, and the British music press seemed to take that quite literally, perhaps expecting the band to bust out some raps.
“The first record had a more industrial feel to it – the beats were a bit more square… and had a punk feel to it – we wanted to get more of a swing in the drums and more movement on the bottom end and wanted to use more samples from old records – and using a sample and putting a beat underneath it was / is the essence of hip hip production.” Robbie explains. And, of course they did sample Laurie Anderson’s Oh Superman on their current single “Hit The Ground (Superman)” – which, Robbie tells us came from a conversation about how 80s pop music was just so cool – and how straight forward music has become today – Laurie Anderson’s Superman came up as an example was such an unusual song yet also kind of a hit.
Not that The Big Pink were totally new to samples – in fact were sampled themselves by Nicki Minaj : “It was amazing to have that nod from the the hip hop community – to get a call and be sent through a demo of the track – it was a big deal for us we love stuff from Cash Money Records”
Check out the full audio of the interview here (11min 55sec)
THE BIG PINK – Future This – out 16 January 2012 on 4AD
