NEWS
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The Bullitts interview - November 2011
Indie | Friday 2nd December 2011 | Osh
We spent one October afternoon in a Bermondsey recording studio with Jeymes Samuel, a.k.a. The Bullitts, and witnessed him record Jay Electronica’s forthcoming album before we quizzed him on his film-making, producing, singing and collaborating career.
I’m here in the studio today with Jeymes Samuel, the mastermind of The Bullitts, to have a chat about his new album and everything else he’s got going on at the moment. So, Jeymes, you’re in the studio today producing your new album, how’s that going?
It’s going really well, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new album, They Die By Dawn and Other Short Stories, and also recording the orchestra for the final track on Jay Electronica’s upcoming album. So it’s going really well, I mean I’m pleased.
Yeah it sounded really good when we were in there.
Thanks, I think it’s dope!
Haha, well it has to be doesn’t it? You wouldn’t want to be making something that you weren’t really pleased with!
Exactly!
So when’s the new album due out then?
I think in spring 2012. The album’s actually finished but we’re just beginning the campaign. I’m just sprinkling the final bits on. When I was young, when I was going to sleep, my dad used to make me a cup of tea, but he used to put a cap of brandy in his tea and I didn’t know what brandy was I was just a kid. I always used to ask my dad for some because, as a kid, everything your parents have you want as well. So I used to go ‘Daddy! Give me some of that!’ and one time he put a cap in my tea. I just remember it had Napoleon on the front and I drank my tea and it made me go ‘tshh tshh tshh’ and so every time I had a cup of tea I used to say ‘Daddy can I have a cup of tea with that ‘tsh’ thing in it?’.
Did you like the taste of it?
I loved the taste of it! Even though I actually don’t drink alcohol now.
Maybe all parents should give brandy to their children then!
It made me sleep like a rock. So, thus was born the phrase ‘Sprinkling some brandy on it’. So whatever you’re doing in life, whether you’re a postman or you’re collecting garbage or if you’re making an album, sprinkle some brandy on it! So, The Bullitts album is finished but I’m just putting the ‘tshh tshh tshh’ on the tracks so everyone can get that ‘tshh’ feeling from it. That’s the only album you’re gonna listen to that you’re gonna go ‘tshh tshh’, you know what I mean!
Haha, nice! So, can you tell us a bit about how The Bullitts started, where did that concept come from?
Well it’s really interesting ‘cause The Bullitt’s isn’t necessarily a concept, The Bullitts is simply the moniker that I make music under and the album, They Die By Dawn and Other Short Stories, I can understand it seeming kind of conceptual but I suppose in all honesty it’s just how I see and hear music - it’s just the sounds and visuals I see and hear in my head. So, as opposed to hearing the song first, I see the visual and then I make the sounds around then. So, ‘They Die By Dawn’ is almost like a dark and grey song and ‘Bouquet of Barbed Wires’ is like a white or cream song. I’ll see songs in colours and visuals.
So once you’ve seen the colours does that help you to work out how it’s gonna sound?
Yeah, and also the theme behind it and the story. I think it would be more of a concept if I made like a hundred songs about love. That would be a concept; [in a smooth voice] ‘Jeymes Samuel presents The Looove Album’. That would be a concept because, chances are, I haven’t even had any of those experiences. Also, when I create I don’t have any creative boundaries; with me being The Bullitts, there’s no compunction about having Tori Amos on the song and me not being on the song at all, I would have written it but it’s not my vocals, I would have made the track but I can fall back it’s alright because it’s The Bullitts, whereas if it was Jeymes Samuel I’d have to do every track. Sometimes you just wanna fall back and let your heroes take over and show you how to fly, so to speak. So, that’s how The Bullitts came about and I suppose the name just came from my love for the Steve McQueen movie, The Bullitt.
Ah ok, so has that name been around for a while then?
Yeah, and I’ll always make music under that name. Originally I used to call the songs I make ‘bullets’. There’s another bullet! You know, secretly, when noone’s looking your ego kicks in like, ‘my song’s better than that song that other guy made! Peeoww!’ [gun sound].
So, you just mentioned that you’ve had Tori Amos involved in your work. Who else are you working with? You’ve obviously also had Jay Electronica, Lucy Liu was narrating...
She narrates the whole album!
The whole album! Ok, cool.
Yeah she narrates the whole album and plays a character called Amelia Sparks who’s on death row and is about to be executed.
That’s intense!
One day I just woke up and was like ‘I need Lucy Liu, I need that femme fatale... who’s the dopest femme fatale?’
You hadn’t met her before had you?
No, I’d never met her.
And when you did meet her did you realise she was the right person for it?
I knew it was the right person. I believe that when I have an idea, the only reason I have the idea because I’m meant to execute it. People have ideas, the person with the best ideas is probably working in the post office.
But he’s just not executing his ideas...
Or he didn’t have the opportunity to execute his ideas. Within the industry there’s a lot of nepotism so he might not have had the opportunity. The people with the best ideas are the civilians, I’m a civilian, I just happen...
...to have the opportunity.
Or to have made the opportunity for myself and enjoy making the opportunity. I like having the idea that... ‘Ok, I need... Barack Obama!’
To narrate your second album! Haha!
And the exciting thing for me will be the fact that I do not know that negro, in the nicest possible way! So then I’m like, ‘right, how can we do this?’ So, then that is the movie. I think a lot of people are turned off by the idea of the execution of the idea but for me that’s the thing that turns me on, not the completion of the idea, that’s not the fun thing. The execution of it, working out how we can get Lucy Liu.
A lot of people would say ‘Oh no, that’s too much!’ and then not do it.
Exactly, exactly. Hence when I have an idea I just have to do it. It was pretty much the same thing with Tori Amos, I sent Tori Amos an email and I said that when I was a kid I used to get in trouble a lot because of the area I grew up in and stuff but I used to listen to Tori Amos a lot. So, although I looked like a hoodrat, on my headphones I’d be listening to Tori Amos’s [sings]; ‘I was a cornflake girl...’ and I’d be playing it to my fellow hoodrats. They’d be like ‘Why you listening to that?!’ I was like ‘Look, this lady is dope!’ So I told her ‘allow me to be that bridge!’ Why can’t a hoodrat listen to Tori Amos as well as a nerd? Why can’t a villain listen to Tori Amos as well as a scholar? Music is music! When we’re kids we listen to everything but as you grow older you become more rigid and are like ‘Well, you know, I like dubstep, I like hip hop...’ Meanwhile you’ll be watching a film that scores classical music and you’ll like it! And you just watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s with your mother and was singing ‘Moon River’ with Audrey Hepburn singing out of the window with her acoustic guitar to George Peppard. Music is music!
Yeah, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t all come together?
Yeah, exactly, so I like bringing people together with what I see as my influences and I like merging them all into one world of The Bullitts, so to speak.
So, who else have you had collaborating on The Bullitts album?
On the album and the whole short stories...
Would you call it a story then?
Yeah, that comes out of my love for Roald Dahl because he would have like The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar... and Other Short Stories.
I used to love that man! I reckon if I was to read all his books again now I’d still love them as much as I did.
Yeah, that’s why I loved Harry Potter so much... It would begin ‘Mr and Mrs...’ I love that! It’s so easy to read! You know the books are really thick, but it’s like two words a page so you feel like you’ve read a novel! So, that’s where the ‘...and Other Short Stories’ bit comes from. When I write songs they’re usually tales of some sort and Lucy Liu is narrating and the songs kind of weave in and out of her narratives. So I suppose it is one grand story arc but there’s all small stories within in them, hence my online presence or the stuff I do as The Bullitts visually. It’s the Run and Hide short film with Jay Electronica or Weirdo starring Elisa Lasowski.
Can you tell us a bit more about the Run and Hide film with Jay Electronica?
Well Run and Hide is a song that Jay Electronica and I made just along the vast body of work we’ve done together and I really like it. It’s based around a David Bowie sample from ‘Quicksand’ so over the chorus I go; [sings] ‘Don’t try to hide / You might as well embrace it / You’ve done it all, turn around and face it / The teachers say the end will never come / But you can’t decide / You bury in the seasons / The words are gone every time you’re speaking / The kings return and where will you reside / Run and hide... / Hide...’
Haha I didn’t even have to ask you for a performance did I? I got one anyway!
But what I’m singing the ‘hide...’ is a theme from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, starring David Bowie, so I’m putting like a subliminal David Bowie over David Bowie... swag! Who’s doper than The Bullitts?! So that was the basis of the song but I was singing the song and listening to it I would just see Jean-Luc Goddard, Francois Truffaut, all of those really great French auteur’s and director’s films. One film in particular Luis Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire I remember there’s a scene where this woman is walking, but I would just see this imagery to Run and Hide but I’ll just see like a black and white French film noir. Like I said when I have an idea, I believe I have it because...
...it needs to be done.
That’s right, because it has to be done. And if I don’t execute it and then I see someone else doing my idea after I’ve already thought of it I’ll be like ‘Ah, man’. And so I was like, look it’s time for us to unleash the French and film noir! So I zoomed to France and I used Elisa Lasowski - she’s a really great actress - and we shot a nine minute movie, just under 10 minutes, to the song Run and Hide. It’s really just a homage to Jean-Luc Goddard. I did the same thing for the video to ‘Close Your Eyes’.
Did you come up with the idea for that one?
Yeah ‘cause when I was writing ‘Close Your Eyes’ I kept on seeing the Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel’s short film Un Chien Andalou so I kind of re-edited it and coloured bits and put my own story in it using a great designer that I worked with. So with the video that’s just the way I see and hear it.
So with the video were you the director?
Yeah I’m the director of all my videos.
Is there a big team involved when you’re making the videos or is it just really your ideas going in?
It’s really just my ideas going in but I have a great team that I work with, a great management team, one guy in particular, King Tony Tako, who you can see in the ‘Super Cool’ video doing some swaggerational moves. What people don’t know about him is he’s actually one of the best dancers... in the world! But he’s one of my producers as well so he makes a lot of things happen, so when I have one of my bizarre ideas he can execute it. If you go to the ‘Super Cool’ unofficial official video you’ll see Tony’s swaggerational moves.
Cool! So, after this album, what more can we expect from you? More films?
Pretty much more of the same. I’m shooting a Western like a straight cowboy shoot ‘em up.
Is that gonna be a British style Western?
No, it’s gonna be straight-up the Old West but it’s gonna be like all black cowboys but all the cowboys really existed. It stars like Idris Elba, Lucy Liu... It’s a straight cowboy shoot ‘em up it’s gonna be shot in Arizona in just under a couple of months and I’m gonna turn that into a feature-length, like a proper film length. Idris [Elba] and I are going back and forth on the storyline now. The next Bullitts album, ‘cause this album I see as a trilogy, They Die By Dawn and then the next album, and then the one after that and I’m just gonna hit them with more swag! I think in this day and age, right, it’s become kind of politically incorrect to be excited about your own stuff. You listen to people talking about their albums and it’s like... ‘What makes this album different from your last one?’ and they’re like ‘Well you know the last one wasn’t really me but this one is much more me and I have much more control of this one’ and it’s like ‘Wait a minute! When you were talking about the last album you said that one was all you and it’s fantastic and I went out and bought that shit and now you’re saying it wasn’t you?!’ My point is, if you’re not gonna be excited about what you do...
...Then why are you doing it!
Exactly! When I was younger people used to ask me if I listen to my own music and I’m like ‘Yesss! Of course I listen to my own music all the time!’ I go home and listen to, [sings] ‘Monogram, hologram...’
Haha so you don’t mind listening to your own voice then?
Man! I listen to it all the time! I really like my own voice.
Yeah? That’s a good sign then!
[Sings] ‘There’s an angel of forgiveness who’s taking out the witness...’ So my point is that The Bullitts album is entirely, I make it free, so it’s entirely where I am and who I am at this point. For the next album I’ll take it even further, and the one after that... I’ll take it even further!
Each song will have its own feature length film to go with it! Haha!
I’ll take it even further than that! So, I’m excited man. They Die By Dawn and Other Short Stories, imagine like, what the hell! That is coming to some speakers near you soon.
And film screens!
Yeah! I mean it’s nearly 2012, we live in strange times, we have to bring back amazing. How many times do you go ‘Wow!’ and really mean ‘Wow!’, as kids we do that all the time but as we get older the wow factor... It’s a bit scarce on the wow factor. I wanna make myself go ‘Wow’ all the time, I wanna see Jay Electronica with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jay-Z. I wanna see Tori Amos on a banger. I wanna see Lucy Liu and Jay Electronica on the same track... I wanna see a cowboy type orchestral journey of musicianship that turns into the illest hip hop banger! And if I can’t see it anywhere then I’ll make it!
So have you actually got some more scope for ideas about who else you want to work with? Any visions of films and songs?
I work at quite a pacey rate so I think I’m executing all the ideas that I have at the moment. One thing I do wanna do is work with Ronnie Corbitt, for those who don’t know he used to be one of the Ronnies in this programme The Two Ronnies with Ronnie Barker and they contributed to a lot of really great British television - a lot of the stuff you see on UK Gold! We’re much too young to have been there at the time, but all the things my mum would tell me about, and Porridge and all of that. But there’s this really important thing, there’ll come a time in every episode of The Two Ronnies where Ronnie Corbitt will sit down and he’ll be chilling and he’ll always be wearing a Lyle and Scott jumper with the trademark eagle on it. And he’ll talk and he’ll tell the story like this man must have been, like if he wrote those down, they’d be comparable to Charles Dickens as far as I’m concerned, he’s a wicked storyteller. He’d sit there in the dark with a spotlight, him in his chair, and his Lyle and Scott.
So maybe you should swap Lucy Liu for Ronnie Corbitt!
Well no, I wouldn’t put Ronnie Corbitt on The Bullitts album but what I want him to do is sit there like that... You know Jay Electronica’s rhyme on ‘Close Your Eyes’... imagine Ronnie Corbitt saying that bit! [Recites] ‘Good Evening, I’m Ronnie Corbitt. Have you ever had the feeling that you’ve been falling for weeks in a well? I was on the verge of dying like E.T in ball spot in the forest, right next to the speak and spell. Trying to phone home but the signal wouldn’t reach the cell. Trying to hold on a little longer, teeth and nail. Without a hand to wipe the tears away from my cheek when they fell. When I couldn’t get peace from a pipe...’ Imagine Ronnie Corbitt doing a Jay Electronica verse! Imagine Ronnie Corbitt doing a Jay-Z verse! Art is art! Why can’t this person meet that person? It’s like someone eating ice cream and rice... you wouldn’t eat them together... but they meet in your stomach! They’re all friends! Vegetables is Ronnie Corbitt, fish is Jay-Z - why can’t they meet? In my brain... they meet. So, during the journey of the art of Jeymes Samuel, I will pull out the oozie and in the words of Al Pacino ‘I’ll take a flamethrower to this place!’ You know those lines?! In the most friendly and artistic manner...
So, gigs... When can we expect to see you play?
Ok, the first gig we did, I wanted it to be a festival.
Big Chill?
Yeah, The Big Chill main stage. Kanye West, The Bullitts, Jessie J... and a couple of others.
What did you think of Kanye West?
Kanye did Kanye! I like it. ‘Cause he always does his talking stuff. It’s easy for people to say all this stuff but when hurricane Katrina hit and the shit hit the fan, who was the only person that spoke out against the government? The only person that spoke out was Kanye West. So you can’t use someone when you want him and then when you don’t want him... I mean, that’s what he does he speaks his mind and how refreshing is it for someone to speak their mind. Kanye West is a great artist. The Bullitts were the best thing at The Big Chill though... and that is that!
Of course! Hands down!
And I’m taking all comers, let’s take it to the stage, speak out against hurricane Katrina, do all you like. The Bullitts were the best thing at The Big Chill and that is just that! Bring it! Come! You know like in the old days where you see the soundclash, this sound challenging that sound. Like the soundboy [Sings Tenor Saw tune] ‘Ring the alarm, another sound is dying...’ When They Die Before Dawn and Other Short Stories hits you’re gonna hear... ‘boom boom... ring the alarm, another sound is dying’. So yeah, The Bullitts were the best thing at Big Chill. Next year we’re gonna do a bunch of gigs, I’ll be touring, and you know I wanna hit the ground running. All good!
Have you got any exclusives for The Guestlist Network?
I suppose not a lot of people know that... I really dislike aftershave.
Oh you do? I’ve heard otherwise!
No, I only wear perfume...
So what perfume do you wear?
I call this one I’m wearing today Sex Panther.
Hmmm ok!
Only 70% of the time it works, not all the time. It’s a really tremendous scent, it’s one of those ones. You know when, well, you’ve never been a guy right?
I haven’t!
But all guys will know this... and you will have had this effect on guys, you actually smell quite nice today I might add!
Thank you very much!
So you’ll be chilling with a group of guys, right, and then a woman will walk past and none of the guys may have looked at that woman, ‘cause she might have been dressed down that day or whatever, and then she gets like 10 seconds past the dudes and then her scent will just hit every single one of those dudes [claps], and all of us think the same word... ‘Wifey’!
Haha!
I used to be like ‘how come guys can’t have that effect’?! But that’s perfumes man, they hit you when a person walks down the road.
And you remember those smells.
Yeah ‘cause a scent is just memories. I got to the age of about 13 and was like ‘I don’t like aftershaves they’re all so strong’. What scientist is making these aftershaves... that scientist can’t even get any girls himself, he has no luck.
He’s probably just jealous like ‘none of these other guys are getting the ladies if I can’t!’
Exactly and so they just make these horrible scents and sell them to Lynx. Not that Lynx has a horrible scent but I’m just saying... I just don’t like those smells! I like smells that make me do this... [Sings] Oooooh yeah! Babooshka babooshka ay ya! I like scents that make me feel like Kate Bush. I like those scents. What did Jay-Z say on ‘Watch The Throne’: [sings] ‘No cheap cologne, whenever I tshh tshh, success never smelled so sweet.’ So there’s an exclusive for you! I only wear perfume.
Thank you Jeymes it was really nice to meet you!
And you! It’s my pleasure, The Guestlist Network.
Catch up with Jeymes and his latest artistic works on Twitter @TheBullitts
Yeah it sounded really good when we were in there.
Thanks, I think it’s dope!
Haha, well it has to be doesn’t it? You wouldn’t want to be making something that you weren’t really pleased with!
Exactly!
So when’s the new album due out then?
I think in spring 2012. The album’s actually finished but we’re just beginning the campaign. I’m just sprinkling the final bits on. When I was young, when I was going to sleep, my dad used to make me a cup of tea, but he used to put a cap of brandy in his tea and I didn’t know what brandy was I was just a kid. I always used to ask my dad for some because, as a kid, everything your parents have you want as well. So I used to go ‘Daddy! Give me some of that!’ and one time he put a cap in my tea. I just remember it had Napoleon on the front and I drank my tea and it made me go ‘tshh tshh tshh’ and so every time I had a cup of tea I used to say ‘Daddy can I have a cup of tea with that ‘tsh’ thing in it?’.
Did you like the taste of it?
I loved the taste of it! Even though I actually don’t drink alcohol now.
Maybe all parents should give brandy to their children then!
It made me sleep like a rock. So, thus was born the phrase ‘Sprinkling some brandy on it’. So whatever you’re doing in life, whether you’re a postman or you’re collecting garbage or if you’re making an album, sprinkle some brandy on it! So, The Bullitts album is finished but I’m just putting the ‘tshh tshh tshh’ on the tracks so everyone can get that ‘tshh’ feeling from it. That’s the only album you’re gonna listen to that you’re gonna go ‘tshh tshh’, you know what I mean!
Haha, nice! So, can you tell us a bit about how The Bullitts started, where did that concept come from?
Well it’s really interesting ‘cause The Bullitt’s isn’t necessarily a concept, The Bullitts is simply the moniker that I make music under and the album, They Die By Dawn and Other Short Stories, I can understand it seeming kind of conceptual but I suppose in all honesty it’s just how I see and hear music - it’s just the sounds and visuals I see and hear in my head. So, as opposed to hearing the song first, I see the visual and then I make the sounds around then. So, ‘They Die By Dawn’ is almost like a dark and grey song and ‘Bouquet of Barbed Wires’ is like a white or cream song. I’ll see songs in colours and visuals.
So once you’ve seen the colours does that help you to work out how it’s gonna sound?
Yeah, and also the theme behind it and the story. I think it would be more of a concept if I made like a hundred songs about love. That would be a concept; [in a smooth voice] ‘Jeymes Samuel presents The Looove Album’. That would be a concept because, chances are, I haven’t even had any of those experiences. Also, when I create I don’t have any creative boundaries; with me being The Bullitts, there’s no compunction about having Tori Amos on the song and me not being on the song at all, I would have written it but it’s not my vocals, I would have made the track but I can fall back it’s alright because it’s The Bullitts, whereas if it was Jeymes Samuel I’d have to do every track. Sometimes you just wanna fall back and let your heroes take over and show you how to fly, so to speak. So, that’s how The Bullitts came about and I suppose the name just came from my love for the Steve McQueen movie, The Bullitt.
Ah ok, so has that name been around for a while then?
Yeah, and I’ll always make music under that name. Originally I used to call the songs I make ‘bullets’. There’s another bullet! You know, secretly, when noone’s looking your ego kicks in like, ‘my song’s better than that song that other guy made! Peeoww!’ [gun sound].
So, you just mentioned that you’ve had Tori Amos involved in your work. Who else are you working with? You’ve obviously also had Jay Electronica, Lucy Liu was narrating...
She narrates the whole album!
The whole album! Ok, cool.
Yeah she narrates the whole album and plays a character called Amelia Sparks who’s on death row and is about to be executed.
That’s intense!
One day I just woke up and was like ‘I need Lucy Liu, I need that femme fatale... who’s the dopest femme fatale?’
You hadn’t met her before had you?
No, I’d never met her.
And when you did meet her did you realise she was the right person for it?
I knew it was the right person. I believe that when I have an idea, the only reason I have the idea because I’m meant to execute it. People have ideas, the person with the best ideas is probably working in the post office.
But he’s just not executing his ideas...
Or he didn’t have the opportunity to execute his ideas. Within the industry there’s a lot of nepotism so he might not have had the opportunity. The people with the best ideas are the civilians, I’m a civilian, I just happen...
...to have the opportunity.
Or to have made the opportunity for myself and enjoy making the opportunity. I like having the idea that... ‘Ok, I need... Barack Obama!’
To narrate your second album! Haha!
And the exciting thing for me will be the fact that I do not know that negro, in the nicest possible way! So then I’m like, ‘right, how can we do this?’ So, then that is the movie. I think a lot of people are turned off by the idea of the execution of the idea but for me that’s the thing that turns me on, not the completion of the idea, that’s not the fun thing. The execution of it, working out how we can get Lucy Liu.
A lot of people would say ‘Oh no, that’s too much!’ and then not do it.
Exactly, exactly. Hence when I have an idea I just have to do it. It was pretty much the same thing with Tori Amos, I sent Tori Amos an email and I said that when I was a kid I used to get in trouble a lot because of the area I grew up in and stuff but I used to listen to Tori Amos a lot. So, although I looked like a hoodrat, on my headphones I’d be listening to Tori Amos’s [sings]; ‘I was a cornflake girl...’ and I’d be playing it to my fellow hoodrats. They’d be like ‘Why you listening to that?!’ I was like ‘Look, this lady is dope!’ So I told her ‘allow me to be that bridge!’ Why can’t a hoodrat listen to Tori Amos as well as a nerd? Why can’t a villain listen to Tori Amos as well as a scholar? Music is music! When we’re kids we listen to everything but as you grow older you become more rigid and are like ‘Well, you know, I like dubstep, I like hip hop...’ Meanwhile you’ll be watching a film that scores classical music and you’ll like it! And you just watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s with your mother and was singing ‘Moon River’ with Audrey Hepburn singing out of the window with her acoustic guitar to George Peppard. Music is music!
Yeah, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t all come together?
Yeah, exactly, so I like bringing people together with what I see as my influences and I like merging them all into one world of The Bullitts, so to speak.
So, who else have you had collaborating on The Bullitts album?
On the album and the whole short stories...
Would you call it a story then?
Yeah, that comes out of my love for Roald Dahl because he would have like The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar... and Other Short Stories.
I used to love that man! I reckon if I was to read all his books again now I’d still love them as much as I did.
Yeah, that’s why I loved Harry Potter so much... It would begin ‘Mr and Mrs...’ I love that! It’s so easy to read! You know the books are really thick, but it’s like two words a page so you feel like you’ve read a novel! So, that’s where the ‘...and Other Short Stories’ bit comes from. When I write songs they’re usually tales of some sort and Lucy Liu is narrating and the songs kind of weave in and out of her narratives. So I suppose it is one grand story arc but there’s all small stories within in them, hence my online presence or the stuff I do as The Bullitts visually. It’s the Run and Hide short film with Jay Electronica or Weirdo starring Elisa Lasowski.
Can you tell us a bit more about the Run and Hide film with Jay Electronica?
Well Run and Hide is a song that Jay Electronica and I made just along the vast body of work we’ve done together and I really like it. It’s based around a David Bowie sample from ‘Quicksand’ so over the chorus I go; [sings] ‘Don’t try to hide / You might as well embrace it / You’ve done it all, turn around and face it / The teachers say the end will never come / But you can’t decide / You bury in the seasons / The words are gone every time you’re speaking / The kings return and where will you reside / Run and hide... / Hide...’
Haha I didn’t even have to ask you for a performance did I? I got one anyway!
But what I’m singing the ‘hide...’ is a theme from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, starring David Bowie, so I’m putting like a subliminal David Bowie over David Bowie... swag! Who’s doper than The Bullitts?! So that was the basis of the song but I was singing the song and listening to it I would just see Jean-Luc Goddard, Francois Truffaut, all of those really great French auteur’s and director’s films. One film in particular Luis Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire I remember there’s a scene where this woman is walking, but I would just see this imagery to Run and Hide but I’ll just see like a black and white French film noir. Like I said when I have an idea, I believe I have it because...
...it needs to be done.
That’s right, because it has to be done. And if I don’t execute it and then I see someone else doing my idea after I’ve already thought of it I’ll be like ‘Ah, man’. And so I was like, look it’s time for us to unleash the French and film noir! So I zoomed to France and I used Elisa Lasowski - she’s a really great actress - and we shot a nine minute movie, just under 10 minutes, to the song Run and Hide. It’s really just a homage to Jean-Luc Goddard. I did the same thing for the video to ‘Close Your Eyes’.
Did you come up with the idea for that one?
Yeah ‘cause when I was writing ‘Close Your Eyes’ I kept on seeing the Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel’s short film Un Chien Andalou so I kind of re-edited it and coloured bits and put my own story in it using a great designer that I worked with. So with the video that’s just the way I see and hear it.
So with the video were you the director?
Yeah I’m the director of all my videos.
Is there a big team involved when you’re making the videos or is it just really your ideas going in?
It’s really just my ideas going in but I have a great team that I work with, a great management team, one guy in particular, King Tony Tako, who you can see in the ‘Super Cool’ video doing some swaggerational moves. What people don’t know about him is he’s actually one of the best dancers... in the world! But he’s one of my producers as well so he makes a lot of things happen, so when I have one of my bizarre ideas he can execute it. If you go to the ‘Super Cool’ unofficial official video you’ll see Tony’s swaggerational moves.
Cool! So, after this album, what more can we expect from you? More films?
Pretty much more of the same. I’m shooting a Western like a straight cowboy shoot ‘em up.
Is that gonna be a British style Western?
No, it’s gonna be straight-up the Old West but it’s gonna be like all black cowboys but all the cowboys really existed. It stars like Idris Elba, Lucy Liu... It’s a straight cowboy shoot ‘em up it’s gonna be shot in Arizona in just under a couple of months and I’m gonna turn that into a feature-length, like a proper film length. Idris [Elba] and I are going back and forth on the storyline now. The next Bullitts album, ‘cause this album I see as a trilogy, They Die By Dawn and then the next album, and then the one after that and I’m just gonna hit them with more swag! I think in this day and age, right, it’s become kind of politically incorrect to be excited about your own stuff. You listen to people talking about their albums and it’s like... ‘What makes this album different from your last one?’ and they’re like ‘Well you know the last one wasn’t really me but this one is much more me and I have much more control of this one’ and it’s like ‘Wait a minute! When you were talking about the last album you said that one was all you and it’s fantastic and I went out and bought that shit and now you’re saying it wasn’t you?!’ My point is, if you’re not gonna be excited about what you do...
...Then why are you doing it!
Exactly! When I was younger people used to ask me if I listen to my own music and I’m like ‘Yesss! Of course I listen to my own music all the time!’ I go home and listen to, [sings] ‘Monogram, hologram...’
Haha so you don’t mind listening to your own voice then?
Man! I listen to it all the time! I really like my own voice.
Yeah? That’s a good sign then!
[Sings] ‘There’s an angel of forgiveness who’s taking out the witness...’ So my point is that The Bullitts album is entirely, I make it free, so it’s entirely where I am and who I am at this point. For the next album I’ll take it even further, and the one after that... I’ll take it even further!
Each song will have its own feature length film to go with it! Haha!
I’ll take it even further than that! So, I’m excited man. They Die By Dawn and Other Short Stories, imagine like, what the hell! That is coming to some speakers near you soon.
And film screens!
Yeah! I mean it’s nearly 2012, we live in strange times, we have to bring back amazing. How many times do you go ‘Wow!’ and really mean ‘Wow!’, as kids we do that all the time but as we get older the wow factor... It’s a bit scarce on the wow factor. I wanna make myself go ‘Wow’ all the time, I wanna see Jay Electronica with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jay-Z. I wanna see Tori Amos on a banger. I wanna see Lucy Liu and Jay Electronica on the same track... I wanna see a cowboy type orchestral journey of musicianship that turns into the illest hip hop banger! And if I can’t see it anywhere then I’ll make it!
So have you actually got some more scope for ideas about who else you want to work with? Any visions of films and songs?
I work at quite a pacey rate so I think I’m executing all the ideas that I have at the moment. One thing I do wanna do is work with Ronnie Corbitt, for those who don’t know he used to be one of the Ronnies in this programme The Two Ronnies with Ronnie Barker and they contributed to a lot of really great British television - a lot of the stuff you see on UK Gold! We’re much too young to have been there at the time, but all the things my mum would tell me about, and Porridge and all of that. But there’s this really important thing, there’ll come a time in every episode of The Two Ronnies where Ronnie Corbitt will sit down and he’ll be chilling and he’ll always be wearing a Lyle and Scott jumper with the trademark eagle on it. And he’ll talk and he’ll tell the story like this man must have been, like if he wrote those down, they’d be comparable to Charles Dickens as far as I’m concerned, he’s a wicked storyteller. He’d sit there in the dark with a spotlight, him in his chair, and his Lyle and Scott.
So maybe you should swap Lucy Liu for Ronnie Corbitt!
Well no, I wouldn’t put Ronnie Corbitt on The Bullitts album but what I want him to do is sit there like that... You know Jay Electronica’s rhyme on ‘Close Your Eyes’... imagine Ronnie Corbitt saying that bit! [Recites] ‘Good Evening, I’m Ronnie Corbitt. Have you ever had the feeling that you’ve been falling for weeks in a well? I was on the verge of dying like E.T in ball spot in the forest, right next to the speak and spell. Trying to phone home but the signal wouldn’t reach the cell. Trying to hold on a little longer, teeth and nail. Without a hand to wipe the tears away from my cheek when they fell. When I couldn’t get peace from a pipe...’ Imagine Ronnie Corbitt doing a Jay Electronica verse! Imagine Ronnie Corbitt doing a Jay-Z verse! Art is art! Why can’t this person meet that person? It’s like someone eating ice cream and rice... you wouldn’t eat them together... but they meet in your stomach! They’re all friends! Vegetables is Ronnie Corbitt, fish is Jay-Z - why can’t they meet? In my brain... they meet. So, during the journey of the art of Jeymes Samuel, I will pull out the oozie and in the words of Al Pacino ‘I’ll take a flamethrower to this place!’ You know those lines?! In the most friendly and artistic manner...
So, gigs... When can we expect to see you play?
Ok, the first gig we did, I wanted it to be a festival.
Big Chill?
Yeah, The Big Chill main stage. Kanye West, The Bullitts, Jessie J... and a couple of others.
What did you think of Kanye West?
Kanye did Kanye! I like it. ‘Cause he always does his talking stuff. It’s easy for people to say all this stuff but when hurricane Katrina hit and the shit hit the fan, who was the only person that spoke out against the government? The only person that spoke out was Kanye West. So you can’t use someone when you want him and then when you don’t want him... I mean, that’s what he does he speaks his mind and how refreshing is it for someone to speak their mind. Kanye West is a great artist. The Bullitts were the best thing at The Big Chill though... and that is that!
Of course! Hands down!
And I’m taking all comers, let’s take it to the stage, speak out against hurricane Katrina, do all you like. The Bullitts were the best thing at The Big Chill and that is just that! Bring it! Come! You know like in the old days where you see the soundclash, this sound challenging that sound. Like the soundboy [Sings Tenor Saw tune] ‘Ring the alarm, another sound is dying...’ When They Die Before Dawn and Other Short Stories hits you’re gonna hear... ‘boom boom... ring the alarm, another sound is dying’. So yeah, The Bullitts were the best thing at Big Chill. Next year we’re gonna do a bunch of gigs, I’ll be touring, and you know I wanna hit the ground running. All good!
Have you got any exclusives for The Guestlist Network?
I suppose not a lot of people know that... I really dislike aftershave.
Oh you do? I’ve heard otherwise!
No, I only wear perfume...
So what perfume do you wear?
I call this one I’m wearing today Sex Panther.
Hmmm ok!
Only 70% of the time it works, not all the time. It’s a really tremendous scent, it’s one of those ones. You know when, well, you’ve never been a guy right?
I haven’t!
But all guys will know this... and you will have had this effect on guys, you actually smell quite nice today I might add!
Thank you very much!
So you’ll be chilling with a group of guys, right, and then a woman will walk past and none of the guys may have looked at that woman, ‘cause she might have been dressed down that day or whatever, and then she gets like 10 seconds past the dudes and then her scent will just hit every single one of those dudes [claps], and all of us think the same word... ‘Wifey’!
Haha!
I used to be like ‘how come guys can’t have that effect’?! But that’s perfumes man, they hit you when a person walks down the road.
And you remember those smells.
Yeah ‘cause a scent is just memories. I got to the age of about 13 and was like ‘I don’t like aftershaves they’re all so strong’. What scientist is making these aftershaves... that scientist can’t even get any girls himself, he has no luck.
He’s probably just jealous like ‘none of these other guys are getting the ladies if I can’t!’
Exactly and so they just make these horrible scents and sell them to Lynx. Not that Lynx has a horrible scent but I’m just saying... I just don’t like those smells! I like smells that make me do this... [Sings] Oooooh yeah! Babooshka babooshka ay ya! I like scents that make me feel like Kate Bush. I like those scents. What did Jay-Z say on ‘Watch The Throne’: [sings] ‘No cheap cologne, whenever I tshh tshh, success never smelled so sweet.’ So there’s an exclusive for you! I only wear perfume.
Thank you Jeymes it was really nice to meet you!
And you! It’s my pleasure, The Guestlist Network.
Catch up with Jeymes and his latest artistic works on Twitter @TheBullitts
