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Molek FMInterview: Filthy Dukes
Heineken Green Room is back! Come Saturday 1 August Heineken Green Room will rock out with their strongest line up yet headlining the event is Filthy Dukes who are a synthpop band from London, England. Comprising of Olly Dixon, Tim Lawton and Mark Ralph, they released their debut album Nonsense In The Dark earlier this year. Described as “electroacidhousenunravetwisteddiscopunkfunk” or Electropop either way, these 3 know how to bring the house down. JUICE sat down with Olly Dixon to witness the madness that is Filthy Dukes.
Are you guys excited about coming down to KL?
Yeah, very excited! It’s gonna be amazing. We played at a festival in Thailand – 2 years ago maybe? And we met a couple of people from KL, they were telling about how exciting Malaysia is and I think it would be cool. Can’t wait!
So what will JUICE expect from a night with FD? JUICE has heard about you bleeding all over the place at Stag & Dagger.
(Laughs) Well we’re kinda quite energetic in our live shows, you know we get quite excited and I think when we boys started the night we really wanted to put on a good show for people and I think people see our excitement and passion about the music. I play the cowbells as well as samples and the electronic percussions and I think I must’ve clipped my finger on the cowbell or something.
Ouch.
The night was going very well so we carried on and I suddenly realized there was blood everywhere so hopefully that won’t happen in KL.
Well it would certainly make the party more exciting! How did Filthy Dukes come about?
Well I started this night called Kill Em’ All about 5 years ago and it was all about new bands and new DJs and we were kind of doing dance music into a kind of indie club environment – not straightforward dance like Daft Punk. At the time The Rapture had this kind of sound we were really into and I met Tim at a pub called (The Locked Cabin) which is sort of like this important music venue in London and we started DJ-ing at Kill Em’ All and put some nights with the unusual and it got really busy. People wanted to hook us up as DJs on other nights and we needed to think of a name. I don’t know where ‘Filthy Dukes’ came from but when I was in university I used to make digitals with another friend of mine with old 8mm film and stuff like that with computers and they kind of quite liked the word ‘dukes’ but it sounded too much like a drum and bass act. We were toying with lots of ideas and we wanted to establish the fact that we play a type of ‘electro dance music’ and not indie music we though ‘filthy’ kind of represented that attribute that came out somehow out of the mess.
So have you guys ever woken up to say “Damn, I’ve got the best job in the world.
(Laughs) Uhmm, not really! I go to bed thinking that but I wake up always thinking that I want a normal job because I’m usually quite tired and hung over and…
Who would FD love to collabo with in the future?
I always like to say that I’d like to collaborate with David Bowie and Bjork.
What do you guys do in your free time?
We kind of do our own thing because we spend so much time together. I like diving and running and all that active stuff. I live in North London near a big park called Hampshire Parks and if I get the chance I run around. I like to go to old record shops, I used to do graphic design so I go to galleries as well.
After your gig in KL, will you have time to go check out the city?
I don’t know really but I’d love to go to the beach. How far is the beach from KL? Is it like a half and hour drive?
If you wanna go to a really nice beach its 4 to 5 hours by bus.
Oh? Then I’m not going to the beach then!
In a year or two, when you’re f***ing famous, what rumour would you like circulating about FD?
That we killed Bono! Bono has disappeared and no one knows where he is and perhaps FD murdered him.
One useless random fact about FD?
Four years ago I was contacted by an arts foundation to help promote London to teenage Chinese nationals to encourage them to come over to study in London, and part of the thing that the Foundation did was to make a life size Barbie doll out of me! It’s way cooler than I am and it’s a model of me with a fake beard and a Kill Em’ All t-shirt on and they put it a big box for display. It’s pretty weird.
Catch Filthy Dukes on Saturday 1 August 2009 along with Verbal, The Blink & Goldfish Showand Didjital at Zouk. Get your invites at www.heineken.com/greenroom.
