Death On The Balcony
Death On The Balcony
07-11-12
This Saturday sees Death On The Balcony join Kris Di Angelis at his night Tramp for some sleazy laser basement action. The deep-house duo have long been a favourite of those in the know, from their peers who regularly play their tracks or get them to remix their own work, to their legions of fans around the around who regularly turn out to see them spin their mixture of house and disco. We caught up with Mark and Paul (aka Death On The Balcony) to find out about their latest tracks, the nights they play, and what a room full of tramps can expect from their set on Saturday!
What's your biggest non-musical inspiration on your music?
Mark: Each other! Also, our friends and family!
Just what is going on in the video for One Thing?
Paul: The concept for the video was created and directed by Thomas James. It was an interesting project to see how someone would interpret your project visually. It certainly evoked some emotions in us when we watched it for the first time as we were as surprised as anyone as to what was going on… especially when a dead mouse makes an appearance to my girlfriend’s dismay!
Why is Leeds such a hotbed for house music?
Mark: It has the heritage from back in the early '90s, with places like Back to Basics being the longest running night you get a good education early! It helps also that there is a large student population here and they are obviously keen to party while here, so there is always a good crowd out on a weekend. There are numerous nights every weekend now, bringing the best international talent here so this leads for good inspiration for all the music producers living here too. As Leeds is a small place it has a community feel to it, like one big hedonistic late night episode of “Cheers”.
What's Death On The Balcony's re-edit heaven and re-edit hell?
Re-edit heaven would be something reinterpreted interestingly, perhaps leaving you guessing. Re-edit hell would have to be the opposite and an obvious edit of an obvious song already done 3 times before said attempt. A good example would be Hall & Oates – I Can’t Go For That. Please leave it alone now!!
Your latest track is called Million Dollar Question… what's your personal Million Dollar Question?
This track is about wanting to be with someone and wondering whether they feel the same thing about you.
If the sound of your music was a celebrity, who would it be?
Rick James!
You run a night called Emmanuelle's Party Bucket, where did the inspiration for that name come from… is it where we think??
We don’t know where you think it came from, but we can assure you that any innuendos are an after thought. It actually came from a studio session with Ste Roberts from Hypercolour. We titled a track “Emmanuelles Party Bucket” as we had sampled a part from the blue movie Emmanuelle from the '70s, and were indulging ourselves in a Party Bucket of fried chicken at the time. The two combined seemed utterly ridiculous but yet we thought had a nice charm to it!
Who's the craziest guest you've had for it?
We have had a few. Robert James is always good fun, Jef K is a wonderfully mad party person too. The craziest people that people may have thought were our guests, would be a party that was booked in before us that ran over, and they had a projector displaying an error screen on the visuals and were creating what can only be described as bleeps and white noise from their laptops... To add to this there was an enthusiastic violinist playing over the beeps. Each to their own, and to their credit they were a good bunch, but I had people arriving for our night and they were bewildered to say the least!
What is your favourite movie soundtrack?
Mark: Bladerunner soundtrack by Vangelis.
Paul : The Lost Boys soundtrack.
What's lurking in your record bag for Tramp?
House and disco music! Some of our original productions too… you’ll have to wait and see; it would be no fun giving the game away too early!
Death On The Balcony play Tramp this Saturday 10th November at Dalston Superstore from 9pm - 3am with Kris Di Angelis and Jodie Harsh.
Death On The Balcony