Monday, September 22, 2003 16:06

Bristol based drum and bass trio, Kosheen, have a new-found rock edge and they'll be showing it off at Southampton's Guildhall in October.

BBC Southampton's Abbie Collins called up electronics whizz Darren Decoder for a natter.


Where are you?

I'm in my garden in Bristol. It's really nice. There's not a cloud in sight. Oh no, there's one!

Kokopelli is a North American Indian word. Why did you choose it as the name of your album?

Well, actually, it's a North American Indian. He was a spiritual character and he used to travel from the all villages and reservations to spread fertility, you know, to make their crops grow. I suppose he was like a witch doctor as well and he used to do some music and dance. We were kind of into American history and culture anyway but then Sian was reading about this guy and we thought we'd link it to that.

It's a lot darker and rockier than Resist. What made you go in that direction?

I think we've always been quite dark! I think the more guitar based sound comes from all the live dates that we've been doing. Most of the album was written on the tour bus on the guitar. Most of the first album was written on guitar but we exchanged a lot of the guitar sounds. We stripped it back and put more of a techno bass sound in there.

With this album we left the guitars in there which is more of a consistent sound for us. It just made sense because we were thinking about how we could play these live. We had a few problems with the first album about really putting it across live. With this album it's a lot easier and we wanted that because our live show is really important to us. There's still little electronic things bubbling away in the background. They haven't gone.

At V2003 you played the Alternative Stage rather than the dance tent. How did that feel?

It was great. We're getting that more now because of the second album. We feel more comfortable there really. I think on that stage you can kind of do anything, whereas in a dance tent you can't sit down halfway through and do an acoustic number, which we do in one of our sets. If you did that in a dance tent everyone would leave.

What's your favourite track to play live?

Recovery goes down really well. It's very hard and dark, that's why I like it. It just creates a great atmosphere when we come in with it.

Do you ever miss working on really hardcore, underground dance and drum'n'bass like you used to?

Well I write under a different name as well, Decoder. I haven't had a chance to do that for a while. I'm getting to do some different mixes of the singles and maybe trying to work on a weird remix album next year. I'm kind of putting my weirdness into those really.

It's enjoyable writing songs with Sian. I can go and do my leftfield stuff elsewhere so I don't need to put that all into Kosheen. There's still some weird stuff in there, just not too much.

What did you listen to as a kid?

I used to listen to The Cure, Sonic Youth, Dead Kennedys. I was into a lot of the early American punk sound. I loved Bauhaus as well, I thought they were a great band.

Then I got bored with that and I started getting into electronic music in the late 80's/early 90's. Aphex Twin, Bjork, 808 State really had a massive influence on the way that I wrote back then. I got into DJing after that as well so I've kind of done a massive full circle.

What was the last thing you bought?

It was a cheese and onion omelette for breakfast at the cafe!

The video for All In My Head was shot underwater. What was that like?

It was interesting. We filmed it at this place in London where they specialise in underwater special effects. The divers had all these great stories to tell. They did Trainspotting down there and all the recent Star Wars stuff. We had an interesting time talking to all those people and it was just a fun day soaking each other with water because it was a really hot day. It was a good laugh and it came out well.

You're about to head off on a big European tour. How do you prepare yourself for all that travelling?

Well, first of all you have to try and take a few days off. It's important just to chill and relax. Then you've got to prep it all up - rehearsals, a few things in the studio that we have to do, maybe get a piece of kit that we need especially for this tour and meetings with the visual guy. So yeah, there's quite a lot of preparation.

Do you get nervous just before heading off, or are you used to it now?

No, you just get really excited. Obviously before a gig you get nervous, well I do anyway. No, it's just exciting. You go down to King's Cross and the tour bus meets you down there. There's this little pub that all the bands go in before they get on the bus. You have a few games of pool in there, a couple of beers and then you all get on the bus. It's like Scooby Doo!

Do you all get on when you're on the tour bus?

Well it's like Big Brother isn't it! But it moves around!

Have you ever forgotten to take something really important with you?

Yeah, the toiletry bag. You smell for a couple of days and have to go down to a local chemist and buy all your stuff back. I've done that quite a few times so I've got about eight toiletry bags now because I bring them back home but I always forget them.

What are you up to after the tour?

We've got some dates in Australia and Asia and then in February or March we're hopefully going to do a tour of the States. So just more touring and hopefully a bit of writing in between as well.