NEWS
EVENTS
Guestlist Meets Ugly Duckling
RnB/Hip Hop | Tuesday 18th October 2011 | Osh
Hey hows it going? Where are you at the mo?
Yeah I’m good its sunny and nice where I am..
Firstly where did the name Ugly Duckling come from?
One of the other guys in the group came up with the name and I think it was a response to other things going on in Long Beach when we first formed the band in 1993, it was right when Snoop and the Chronic scene was really big where we lived, the G Funk scene everybody was dog you know you, Nate Dogg Snoop Dogg. We felt not at all part of that we were very different Dizzy kind went with that and called us The Ugly Ducklings of the bunch. I think its funny to compare us to them cause they had such huge success cause were a small time working class kind of band.
Your still big in my eyes I’ve heard of you guys!
(laughs) Yeah Chinelle likes us so our lives are now complete (Laughs)
How was life growing up in Long Beach, California?
It was really great man yeah I love Long Beach one of the special parts about it is per capita its one of the most racially and economically diverse cities in America. Just going to public schools you got to meet people of all stripes and background and that was where we got exposed to hip hop music and different things like that. We all went to high school with those guys you know, Warren G and Snoop Dogg so we grew up right around all those stuff but at the same time we also had friends from different neighbourhoods it was just a real cool experience.
You are coming over to London on 14th October to play The Jazz Cafe...are you feeling the London vibes?
Yeah we are. Hopefully it will go well. We’ve played there before and every time we come to London that I can recall of the last 10 years the show is at least good you know, Its usually really good. What’s funny about being in the band is that, and all of us agree, is that no matter how good the response is that were a month away from our career being over (laughs), we’ll just show up at the Jazz Cafe and it will be 2 guys and one of them has got a mop and his sweeping up the floor and his like ‘sorry guys show over just pack up and go home’ (laughs) Were convinced this will be our last show (laughs)
That’s kind of good in a way cus you will always be in that frame of mind like this could be our last guys make it count..
That’s part of it yeah. We’ve always thought that were on the margin of success we obviously have people who like our group you know so were hopeful that things will go well but we have never felt that entitlement of success, were very fortunate to do music on our terms and the way we fell is right and that we have an audience at all is very fortunate.
You have been in the game for a long time, where do you see hip-hop now?
Yeah a long time. Yeah I remember our first tour. There’s different stages of hip hop like back in day it wasn’t really primarily all about the money you know but you know early on in hip hop if you look at the Sugar Hill Gang and Run DMC there was a lot of big money talk so its not completely adverse to the culture to be a materialistic person there is some of that in the roots of the culture but I felt like at some point the hip hop culture has evolved especial the late 80’s and early 90’s it was changing and having a lot more to say like Public Enemy and Tribe Called Quest or whether it was just political or conscious or even humorous or intelligent in any way. I don’t know something happened where it felt like it really degraded back in to the most base level you know, money, clothes and hoes and all that stuff (laughs), I don’t know why or how it happened but it happened you know.. .Its rude in pop music but in hip hop people wanted to become mainstream and they found the best way to sell hip hop was that kind of product you know.
Tell us about your new album ‘Moving At Breakneck Speed’ this is your fifth album, did you come up with the concept for this album?
Well kind of in line what were talking bout earlier the fact that we have always felt lucky to be in a group and in some ways we thought that we’ve robbed a bank and were on the run, that fact that we get to work and have a career is so fortunate we almost feel that someone is gonna chase us down and tell us that’s it so we turned it to like there’s no way we should survive and make a living cause we break all the rules in convention like we still sample all our music, so the idea of the album is like were always two steps ahead of the law like us on the run and there’s silly band of bad guys chase us down trying to take our career. The code is like keep moving keep running keep performing keep writing songs stay ahead you know. Trying to make enough money to stay alive and keep our name out there so musical its trying to express that feeling.
You have a unique sound and focus more upon the positive aspects of life rather than drugs and guns. What message do you hope to deliver with your music?
I don’t think were a message band per say sometime you want to just tell a story or you just want to you know to personify an emotion there’s not really a message to it, its just your attracted to this feeling you know and then you create a song around it so you don’t want to be like what does this mean (laughs) what is trying to tell us you know (laughs) i think what we like to do is take it one song at a time, well create a chord progression something we think is powerful and then we would be like what could this be about what does this sound like.. Like on this new album we did two songs, one called One Horse Town and the other Anything Could Happen in The Big City and there back to back one song is just about a guy growing up in a small town who wants to go to the big city he wants to try and be an artist and everybody in the small town your an idiot (laughs) you need to get a steady job and then the city song is about him arriving in the city and people overwhelmed by how difficult it is and him going through how hard its going to be to make it, there’s no real moral to the story it just seem like an interesting take on an experience a lot of us go through you know.
What was the last record you bought?
I bought a Cool and The Gang live at the Sex Machine yeah i love that record so i went out and bought that.
What’s the plan for next year?
Were coming to Europe in October and November and then we have some stuff like in New Zealand and Australia, a trip to Japan in development too, so were trying to work and promote as much as we can and get it out there and see what happens
If you were invisible for the day what trouble would you get up to?
Oh that a good one (Laugh) the advantage to being invisible is that you can sneak into places where you normally couldn’t do so... Erm .. (Laughs) i have to say as i kid i would really like to go to the history museum especially when they have these displays like with the cave people or the big stuff elephants and i always had that huge eurge to jump over the rail (Laughs) and sit on the elephants or lay with the tigers.
Like in the night in the museum.
Yeah like that.. There’ a charlie Chaplin movie where his a tramp and he and his girlfriend hide out the department store like a big fancy department store overnight and they live like kings while the stores is closed all night. (Laugh).
Whats the most expensive thing you have bought ever?
Well i bought a car once but i guess that expensive but whats funny to me the most expensive thing to me that jumps out at me when i bought turn tables for the first time not because it was latterly the most expensive thing i have ever bought but considering how much money i had at the time so to actually go and spend like over $1000 getting turn tables it just seem like that i was mortgaging my future (laughs) I’m a pretty conservative money spender but i never spent that money before as a kid and that just felt like wow..
Can you give us an Ugly Duckling exclusive?
Oh ok something juicy?
Yes… (both laugh)
I’ll say this much.. I don’t know if this is an exclusive but i cant explain the obsession that Einstein has for Nando’s chicken.. i mean it just there’s no understanding on how focused on eating as much Nando’s as he possible can. We have this guy who live in Norwich and we’ve know him for a while, his a bit of a strange guy be he told him that there’s such thing as a Nando’s black card that the company gives you to pretty much order whatever you want for free any time so there is rumors circulating around the band that there is possible a Nando’s black card waiting for Einstein (laughs). its unatural how much he like its.. so there you go. (Laughs).
Fri 14th Oct 2011Ugly Duckling Jazz Cafe London
Sat 15th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Haunt Brighton
Sun 16th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Orange Rooms Southampton
Tue 18th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Brass Monkey Hastings
Thu 20th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Bullingdon/ Back Room @ The Bull Oxford
Fri 21st Oct 2011 DJ Yoda, Ugly Duckling [hip hop], A.Skillz, Plump DJs, Foamo Motion Ramp Park Bristol
Sun 23rd Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Rainbow Birmingham
Mon 24th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling Cox's Yard/ Attic Stratford-upon-Avon
Tue 25th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling Fibbers York
Wed 26th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The HiFi Club Leeds
Thu 27th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling Sound Control Manchester
Fri 28th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling King Tut's Wah Wah Hut Glasgow
Sun 30th Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling The Kazimier Liverpool
Mon 31st Oct 2011 Ugly Duckling Sneaky Pete's Edinburgh
Tue 1st Nov 2011 Ugly Duckling Sheffield University Students Union Sheffield
Wed 2nd Nov 2011 Ugly Duckling The Bodega Social Nottingham
