| Francis Madeira speaks to Mark
- lead vocalist of Space Raiders. |
| February 1999 |
| I guess glam rock must be a big influence |
| It was, yeah, especially for Gary |
| Who in particular has inspired you over the
years and what artists and DJs do you respect now? |
| Well over the years Gary liked the Glitter
Band, Sweet, and then he got into all the electronic music, you know like early Human
League. For myself I was first inspired by like the Drifters, The Beatles, I got into
Japan quite early and through like Primal Scream and the dance music kinda thing.
Martin’s inspired by - what are you inspired by Martin? Anything good he says - he
was a long term Stereo MCs fan and at the moment we like Blackstreet, we love the Lo-fis
stuff and Fatboy Slim |
| Laid Back is completely different to Glam Raid
- Will every single sound different or are you going to take Norman Cook’s If it
ain’t broke stance? |
| Well we’ve got on the album itself
we’ve got maybe four or five different styles - there are another couple of Glam
songs, but most of the time we just sample what we feel like at the time - half of the
time we don’t think like this is for a single or this is for an album - we just do it
because we like making music |
| So it’s not instantly recognisable as
Space Raiders? |
| No, not really, there’s little like
tricks - we’ll always have the sort of itchy-scratchy noises and stuff like that
because that’s the way we work - we work on pretty lo tech kit |
| What kit in particular? |
| Well we use a QSZ10 Samplers, we use Music
X to do all the sequencing on. Gary’s also got a Korg MS20 which we use - we just
found the receipt the other day from when we bought it - it was 1980! So that goes back a
long time - it’s basically old kit that we’ve got. |
| Is that on a PC or a Mac? |
| No, we just use an Amiga! |
| Norman Cook - he’s broken all Skint
records by getting both a number one single and a number one album - it will take a lot of
work to beat that - is that something you aspire to do |
| Yes, to be honest - it’s always been a
dream. We started doing Space Raiders as a bit of a daft laugh, but then as it progresses
it becomes a thing about wanting dance music in the charts |
| Some of the other critics have been resenting
Norman Cook just for doing well |
| But he’s done so many years of work to
get this far |
| Yes - for fans like me who’ve followed
him all theses years it’s great to see him finally get the success he deserves |
| definitely - he deserves a bit,
doesn’t he? If anyone deserves it he does, and I mean he’s not a big name feller
is he? He just writes his music |
| The best track on the Lo-fi’s recent
Battleflag single was your remix - being a man who always skips to the remixes on any CD
he gets, I hope we can expect more Space Raiders mixes in the near future - have you any
planned? |
| Yeah definitely, we did a Babylon Zoo one!
Which we got a bit slated for, but the tune was virtually similar to you know Glam Raid,
well we got stung on that sample so we were gonna have a go and just try to do it |
| Was that All The Money’s Gone? |
| Yeah its gonna be on the single when it
finally comes out, but we did that ages ago. We did a remix of Street Tentacles, but that
was kindof a housey remix of that track. Hopefully if we like get a name, that’s what
we’d like to do |
| Because Apollo440, they’re into remixes a
lot, and some of your glam tracks sound a lot like thiers - or perhaps its the other way
round… |
| Well we’d like to think it was the
other way round ‘cause we hadn’t heard much glam stuff when we did it. |
| I suppose they are aimed at different
audiences anyway… |
| Definitely, yeah, but it is kind of a new
rhythm the whole glam seem - the 4/4 beam, the drums - toms. |
| Every band has a different opinion of the CIN
chart ruling limiting a CD single to 20 minutes of remixes or just three tracks. I think
this rule is disgusting, but for you it means you don’t have to write so many B-sides
and pay for so many remixes - how do you feel about this subject? |
| We’re not keen on it. There
shouldn’t be a limit should there?- the first track we ever did together is going to
be like the last track on the album called East Coast Melody and that’s an 11 and a
half minute long deep house thing, and I mean that was on the first demo tape, and Skint
have never asked us to change that - so you shouldn’t be limited - if something feels
right beeing long, then it should be long |
| Speaking of B-Sides, you’ve written a
couple of intriguing ones. Boy Power was obviously inspired by the Spice Girls |
| Well yeah - it was kind of an answer to
that and all the Gary Glitter - kind of a strnge title after all he’s been upto! -
but again it was the fascination with toms |
| I thought the use of John Williams’ Close
Encounters theme was brilliant. And as for Song For Europe, do you destined to win the
Eurovision song contest one day? |
| That was kinda like we woke up before we
went on tour with the Lo-Fis and we just wanted to do something on the glam house thing
but without the samples in it |
| Talking of your tour with Lo-Fidelity
Allstars, how important is the Space Raiders live experience? |
| We don’t take out like instruments -
we take keyboards and CD-dex and things - a lot of it is just about us dancin’ -
‘cause we’re a dance act - it’s music to dance to. If your own music
doesn’t make you dance, then what the hell is gonna? There is a lot of that, but we
have to try and restrain ourselves - if it was up to us we’d dance all the way
through! It’s that prodigy kind of thing.. |
| Because two of them are just dancers.. |
| Which makes them sound different,
doesn’t it? |
| You’re the vocalist, what do Martin &
Gary do in the band? |
| Gary plays the Korg live on stage, but
generally Martin is the chief sequencer, but we all put in bits of everything -
Martin’s like the man for the Amiga! We all contribute different bits of music - we
all do like bits of keyboard and stuff like that - we’re fairly interchangeable..
|
| Unlike the Prodigy where its all Liam… |
| Yeah but they give it a big persona
don’t they |
| Your first video was very surreal in places,
and was certainly a refreshing change to lots of those 200grand promos you see nowadays.. |
| Yeah it cost us less than a grand! We did
it with some friends from Middlesborough who are at art college. |
| I see you are in the new video. |
| Yeah its all based in a dentist surgery -
Matt Kerby came up with the idea - we were getting a lot of people coming up and saying it
was like druggy after-club music, and he just came up with this totally unlikely set like
a dentist surgery - what place would you be least laid back in? |
| Signing to Skint records was the turning point
in your career so far - some other critics accused them of selling out last year to Sony,
when really all Damien Harris has done is give global exposure to all the Skint artists.
How do you feel about the whole situation? |
| Definitely - here at Skint nothing’s
changed - they’ve just got wider arms now, wider reach. It’s kinda like we never
see anyone from Sony really - Damien still deals with like our day-today stuff |
| How did you feel moving all the way from
Middlesborough to Brighton to be housed in the home of Skint? |
| Well its good for the night life
obviously - we miss all our mates, but there are a lot of club opportunities that you just
don’t get in Middlesborough - everything’s here and on the doorstep - I
couldn’t have lived in London to be honest, but Brighton’s like a good
alternative - a laidback place! |
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