London Electricity - Power Ballads Album

Die letzte LP "Billion Dollar Gravy" der wohl bekanntesten Drum'n'Bass live Combo London Electricity erschien in 2003. Nun präsentiert Tony Colman mit seiner Band das "Power Ballads" Album. Anlässlich des Albums und der "LE" Deutschlandtour stellten wir Tony ein paar Fragen ...

Let's start with some basics: Who are the members of London Electricity and what are they playing in the band?

Liane Carroll: Vocals
Jungle Drummer: Drums
Andy Waterworth: Bass
Tim Landslide: Samples + percussion
MC Wrec: Vocals
Tony Colman: Keys + b vox

What are your musical influences? Where do you get your inspirations from?

Mainly from good emotional orchestration, film music, TV music, mood music, good songwriters, form everywhere and anywhere ...

On the cover of "Power Ballads" we see you with a strange instrument. What the hell is this?

This is the Suzuki Omnichord. It's a Japanese educational instrument from about 1976.

Tracklisting "Power Ballads":
01.) Out Of This World
02.) Power Ballad
03.) Remember The Future
04.) The Strangest Secret In The World
05.) I Don t Understand
06.) Hanging Rock
07.) Will To Love
08.) The Mustard Song
09.) Watching You, Watching Me
10.) Pussy Galore
11.) Vapour Trails
12.) Far From The Shadows

How is the sound different from your last Album "Billion Dollar Gravy" compared to "Power Ballads"?

I think it's a lot better production, and more depth and definitve more live sounding.

How do you write the tracks: Are you the composer and the others "only" the musicians?

I write all the music, but all the songs on the album are co written between me and Liane Carroll and also Wrec on a couple too.

Talking about London Electricity you mostly hear the name Tony Colman. Also on the cover of Power Ballads we see only you. Do the other members want to stay more in the background?

Have a look on the back cover of the album! There's the whole band enjoying ourselves around a mic. This album is kind of still my solo work but with more input from the band than the last album.

Let's assume a big major wants LE for their label and wants to push the band with a big marketing campaign, tv spots, etc. Would you do it? Or do you want to keep your credibility?

It's not that simple. Some acts are on Majors and manage to keep their credibility like royksop, milo etc, and some acts on small indies never have any credibility so you can't generalize.

It's all about how you play the game. Anyway personally I think we'll stay on Hospital 'cos we're nice here!

How important is the internet for you? You are also running a blog, right?

Totally important and essential. It's how we communicate (aside from our music that is!)

And what's your opinion about things like DJing with CDs or Final Scratch? Is this the future?

It's as much the future for DJs as guitar synthesizers were for guitarists in the '80s.

Where do you like to performe live more: At big raves where you play in between Andy C and Mampi Swift, or at Jazz festivals, which are more about "music"?

All different. Our live set doesn't work so well in hard raves, cos it's not class a drug music - it's more spliff or drink music. We like playing in a concert or club situation where people can really get into the show. It's not that suitable for the "one hour each act" conveyor belt rave situation.

At your last tour Stamina MC was on the mic. Now it is MC Wrec. Why the change?

Wrec was feeling the new material much more than Stamina, and had already been on the road with the band on and off when Stamina couldn't do the shows. He's a full band member now and has been for 2 years.

In november you are touring in Germany. You know the german scene, do you have connections to any artists over here? Or "only" to Syncopix? ;)

Yeah we've been working with Roland for a couple of years now, and we're developing our relationship with him. I would love to release some music by other German artists, but nothing right has come our way yet - so come on send em in people...

Asides from LE, Hospital is one of the labels with the highest reputation in the scence and has been voted as the label of the year 2004 at last years future-music.net Awards. What can we expect in the near future on Hospital?

Well we have the new Syncopix 12" Travellin / 8 bit blues soon, then the Future Sound of Budapest EP n December feat SKC, Chris SU and the crew from there. Next year we have debut albums from (holds breath) Cyantific, Q Project and Logistics. PLUS it's our 10th birthday.

And in January we release NHS100 which will be a mega 3 CD mix by London Elekektriciy, High Contrast + Cyantific spanning the whole career and catalogue of Hospital.

Ok, anything you want to say to our readers?

Has anyone got a cure for the flu???

Tony, thanks for the interview!

London Electricty "Power Ballads" Tour Dates Germany:

02.11.05: Aachen - Jakobshof
03.11.05: Köln - Stadtgarten
04.11.05: Saarbruecken - Electricity Festival @ Atomic Club
05.11.05: Leipzig - Conne Island
06.11.05: Tuebingen - Das Depot
08.11.05: Berlin - Watergate
09.11.05: Bremen - Ting!
10.11.05: Duesseldorf - Unique (DJ+MC+Drums)
11.11.05: Heidelberg - Enjoy Jazz Festival @ Karlstorbahnhof
12.11.05: Chemnitz - AJZ Talschock
13.11.05: Hamburg - Mandarin Kasino

www.hospitalrecords.com [1]

London Electricity Blog [2]

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Links:
   [1] http://www.hospitalrecords.com/live_elektricity.shtml
   [2] http://www.20six.co.uk/le-live
   [3] http://www.future-music.net/forum/showthread.php?t=28168