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Sticky Blood speak about their sound, swimming and Sheffield
Other | Friday 14th August 2015 | Christina
Sticky Blood, aka Andy Nicholson and Jamie Shield, are a Sheffield based production duo. The pair work with artists across genres, including MC DRS, Coco, George The Poet, Tom Prior and Terri Walker, as well as being one half of hip-hop collective Clubs & Spades. Their debut EP I.D drops today, and they’re well underway with their next project. We sat down with them at Red Bull Studios to chat about swimming, Sheffield, the Sticky Blood sound. And whitebait.
Hi guys, how’s it going?
Andy: Good.
Jamie: Great.
What have you been up to recently?
Jamie: Making a lot of music, riding trains. Running down my battery life on my laptop.
Andy: I’ve been swimming a lot.
Swimming where?
A: In Ponds Forge international swimming leisure centre in Sheffield. Lane swimming.
Is that outside or inside?
A: That’s inside.
J: I think we’re gonna get a week’s membership at the Aquatics Centre in Stratford while we’re here. It sounds like a lie but it’s true [laughs].
A: That does sound like the biggest lie of the day but it’s not, it’s the realest truth of the day.
How long are you in London for then?
A: A week. We’re doing an EP at Red Bull Studios with numerous amounts of artists coming into sing for us.
Is that all you can say about it or can you give us any more?
J: No I think we can say whatever we want. There’s certain things we wouldn’t say in case it didn’t pull off, we’re pessimistic like that. So we would not say that in case it’s just a big let down, no one wants egg on their face but we got some people we’ve worked quite closely with coming down, like Hekky who’s on that track, Terri Walker and Tom Prior. Yeah a good selection and then a few more if they show up, if not there’ll be an instrumental on there.
A: We’re trying to make some friends, trying to get them down.
And it’s just a weeklong project and it’s finished or you’ll do more in Sheffield?
A: Yeah we’ll do more in Sheffield. It’s basically five days to get all the vocals for the whole EP done and the arrangements, which we’ve got because we’ve known about this for a while. For about a month we’ve been working and making ideas and we’ve got about 30 different ideas for people to pick from and for us to whittle down to four or five for this EP, and then once we’ve got the vocals we’ll take them up home back to our studio, and finish the job we started.
When’s it gonna come out?
J: I don’t think there’s a set date is there? Should I know?
A: The end of November, beginning of December. Not an actual date yet but that time.
So apart from the swimming is there one other thing you wanna do whilst you’re in London?
J: I don’t know. I think we wanna eat courtesy of other people’s wealth [laughs] and we want to not miss football on Friday night. That’s about it.
A: We wanna work as much as possible, make as much music as possible, watch as much football as possible, swim as much as possible and it’s always nice to take in the sites of London while you’re here.
What football team do you support? Same one?
A: No different. I support Sheffield United for all me sins.
J: Aston Villa. Yeah, it’s a left decision, I’ve got no relation in Birmingham or anything.
Stuck with it now though.
J: Yeah you can’t change can you?
Ok enough football. Tell me when and how Sticky Blood came into being.
J: The year that’s the floating date is 2013.
A: I think it’s ’12.
J: It might be. Maybe we’ve lied in some statement.
A: I think we have. I think it’s 12/13 season, we’re gonna work in football.
J: Was part of the question how?
Yeah part of the question was how.
J: Just through mutual friends. Really quite organically, it’s hard to really make it sound like an interesting story, we just linked up, he showed me a few things he could do, I showed him a few things I could do.
A: We combined our skills to make one overall, alright song.
How does it differ from your other projects? I know you’re involved in Clubs & Spades as well so how do you split the two?
A: We split them quite well but it’s nice to split them so musically we’re never bored. We can do Clubs & Spades where it’s a hip-hop thing, then we can go and do our own thing, which is a mad, electronic, futuristic, trippy stuff, and then we work with Terri Walker and it’s an R&B, soul, hip-hop vibe, and then we work with Tom Prior and it’s a piano, Coldplay, band type of situation, and then other people come in and out. It’s just nice to dot about, so we know where we are with every one of them, and we never get bored of that sound because we’re always moving.
How do you balance the work, especially with Clubs & Spades? If something comes up do you do it or do you have set times?
A: We try to book things in. Our manager loves a calendar, loves a calendar. And for some reason unbeknownst to me we gave our manager, she’s got a calendar on Google and it’s linked to our phones, so when something gets booked in it’s straight on our phones, in our calendar. We like to organise things anyway, so we know when something’s coming, we’re prepared and we know when we’ve got free time. The Sticky Blood stuff usually comes with free time, that’s something we do in our free time when we’re not doing all these sessions, that’s when we do our own thing. What a long answer. I’m fine thank you [laughs].
Your first single ‘Professional’, I found it quite hard to describe, it doesn’t really fit one genre, but I’ve seen it described as lots of different things.
J: What have you seen?
Chill trap, bass heavy...
A: It’s interesting to see what other people see our music as because us two just see it as songs that we made that day. Outside the walls of our studio it’s hard to imagine that someone 200 miles away has listened to it and they’ve got an opinion on it. It’s nice to know what they think of it and what genre they say it is even because we don’t really think like that. We make it and let it live.
I was going to ask, do you find it, annoying’s the wrong word, but difficult that people always want to call it something and have to label music, it’s got to be this, or it’s this, or it’s this, whereas sometimes it doesn’t help to label someone in a genre?
J: I don’t really find it annoying. I think it’s just interesting and you’ve gotta not be too close to stuff I think. You’ve gotta enjoy it while you’re doing it and if you continue to like it afterwards, that’s cool but once it’s out there, it’s out there. And it should never have got out there if you didn’t think it was good, so we obviously think it’s good.
A: We work under the rule of once you make a song and put it out, once it’s out for anybody in the world other than you two to listen to, you don’t own it anymore. I’m not going to go as far to say “that’s not our song anymore, man, that’s the people’s song”, not like that, obviously it’s our song, we’ve put our name to it but it’s up to the listener to determine what it is and what you think it is. You decide whether you like it. If you don’t like it, that’s fine, if you do like it, show it your mates. Pigeonholes and things like that, I’m not really arsed, I’m not bothered whether people say what it is, it’s up to them.
So it’s good music or bad music.
A: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Why did you choose to go with Hekky on the vocals for that one?
A: He was just in that day.
J: It probably is just that. We’ve known Hekky and known about Hekky for years. We tend to like when stuff’s a bit different and authentic and real to what it’s trying to be. I think if Hekky was to walk in now, which he could do any second because he’s coming down, if he was to walk in now, the personality you’d be greeted with is how you’d imagine it would have been anyway.
A: If you listen to his lyrics and his tone of voice and how he puts himself across for you to hear and you met him, it would all make sense because that is what he is, he’s just a chilled out guy, mumbles a lot, says words that don’t mean things but also as far as I’m concerned, he’s a very talented singer, songwriter and artist. There’s not many people who you see that you think “you will make a good artist” whereas Hekky is already an artist, it’s like he’s there doing all that, all he needs someone with a label or anything to think “right yeah it’s your time”. He’s all packaged up, he’s ready to go, he’s got the talent, he’s got the songs, he’s got the voice, he’s got the look, he’s got all of that.
J: He’s not really trying to be anything either, he just is that way. If he’s influenced by stuff, I don’t even think he knows about it.
A: I think it’s hard for people to say what they think he’s influenced by.
And tell me the concept behind the video.
J: It was quite loose and it started to make more sense as we went along with doing it. It was kinda like I think a big, empty, scary looking forest is a scary place.
A: It was a different place. You’re not gonna expect to see some skinny black lad with bleached hair walking around chasing a bear with a Union Jack.
It’s not what I imagined when I heard the track.
A: Yeah. It’s just a bit different. It would have been so easy with that video to just do him chasing a girl in a club, that’s so boring. We’re all about just trying to keep it a bit different.
J: Because of the track’s slight eeriness, it’s almost like the theme, the type of music you could hear not in a nightmare but you know when you have a dream and nothing particularly scary happens but you wake up and feel a bit unsettled, it was just a bit of that. Obviously we brought the girl in to get the point across because the track is about a certain type of female that probably exists in 2015. There’s a loose concept there, we just wanted it to look cool.
A: Lyrically with that song as well, we don’t really interfere with people’s lyrics. We make the bed for their music to sit on, for their song to sit on. We’ll work on a song together but no one would ever say to Hekky, “don’t say that or say this” because that’s how he expresses himself. When working with a vocalist I think try and let them be them as much as possible before you step in and cut them off.
J: I think sometimes with that being said, it’s never trying to step on people’s toes if they’ve got an idea but if we’re all working together and trying to come up with something and we’ve got an idea, then I think everyone gets involved naturally anyway.
The other tracks on the EP push slightly towards more of a grime sound, is that the sound you’re going with or is that just what happened on this particular project?
A: I think that’s just what happened on that particular project because I don’t see us as grime producers. I don’t know if people do. Again, I don’t know what people see us as. I just see us as producers that make music. I don’t wanna be a grime producer, I just wanna be a producer that makes good music.
J: It’s quite hard being from this country wanting to make music that’s got that spoken word/rap influence without it quickly beginning to sound like grime. It’s something I think we’re trying but we’re conscious to try and balance because the people who are big in grime and getting big in grime, they’re already really deep into that and I don’t just wanna be chasing their tails forever. If anything, I’d like to be people that take people who’ve been doing grime for ten years into a place they’ve not gone yet, I’d rather we’d be doing that. But you don’t always get people that wanna do that.
A: What we like to do is, if we’ve got a grime artist coming in, you do what you do but you’re gonna do it on a beat that’s completely different to what you expect to do it on. Or it’s like, “alright you’re a grime artist that’s gonna do something that’s completely not grime and you’re not gonna be grime”. We don’t ever wanna do something that sounds like it’s expected, I don’t want you to hear or see someone’s name written down and think “I know what that’s gonna sound like”. It’s always just trying to keep it different.
J: Sometimes it will go that way. We’ve made tunes before where we’ve wanted to do something different and it’s ended up sounding like x but that’s alright because I like, say grime, and it just goes down a grime route. It’s not nice to battle with an idea if an idea’s taking shape of itself anyway.
A: Yeah you gotta let the music breathe. Saying that we’re not grime producers, we’re both fans of grime, we’re both into that and up to date with the scene, and listening to what’s new and what’s current, but I just don’t really see us as grime producers.
That’s fair enough. So the EP is coming out on your label Card Gang, what else is going on with the label? Are you signing people or releasing more music?
J: Yeah we’re definitely gonna use it as a platform for music that otherwise might not be able to be released, or if it’s music that can be released and we can influence someone to put that music out through our label, we’ll use it as that. I think more than anything the label, I’m a bit cautious of the term because I know a lot of people these days with the Internet being something where you can pretend you’re a this, pretend you’re a that, I don’t wanna pretend like we’re trying to start a label. It’s a platform for us to put our music out if no one else will, it’s for us to put music out that we believe in. I’d rather it be seen as a platform rather than a label. I don’t wanna be at anyone’s cocktail party talking about it, pretending it’s bigger than it is [laughs]. It’s something that god knows what it’ll end up being but it’s starting as a place that we can get our music out.
A: We live in a day and age where if you buy a laptop, now you can edit videos, you can be a producer, you can be a photographer, you can be a record label, you’re a DJ, you can do everything. We’re not trying to do that, this is just a way for us to put our music out, it’s just a platform. Coming up we’ve got Hekky, we’ve done some songs with him, so there’s a Sticky Blood Presents Hekky coming out, I think in a couple of months. We’re just trying to keep things moving and just trying to put good music out. That’s all it’s about.
Do you think it could evolve into something like a night?
A: Yeah that would be good, putting on events and things is definitely something we’d be up for doing. Hopefully we’re gonna be putting a lot of artists out through that and then we’d have those artists come and play at the nights and things. We kinda talked about that but it’s learn to walk before you can run sort of thing, a lot of people are like “I’ve got a record label and this is the night for it, this is my greatest hits from my label”. We’re not gonna be doing a greatest hits anytime soon.
Do you have plans for Sticky Blood live? Is that something you’ve thought about?
A: Yeah. I say yeah, we’ve definitely thought about it but coming from band backgrounds, we want it to be like that because a lot of electronic producers think, “yeah I’m gonna do it live and instead of just having my laptop DJing, I’m gonna have a keyboard next to it as well, and now it’s live”. That’s not live to us, live to us is hitting things, playing instruments, live instruments, guitars, basses, drums, percussion, so when we do it, we wanna do it like that. We wanna take as much live as possible. I think we’re getting to the point where we need to start thinking about it a bit more seriously. More importantly than anything, we’ve gotta get more songs, unless you book us for a gig and we can play ‘Professional’ five times in a row and then ‘I.D’ five times and then we’re going home. Right now we need to get more music done. But definitely, I want to do it. Jamie likes being in the studio more.
J: Yeah I’m definitely a bit of a studio bug, I don’t know where that term came from, but yeah I like to fester in a studio. At the same time when the situation’s right I love playing live, I’ve always played live through my life doing different things so I’m more than up for it, it’s just about getting it right. The idea of a DJ set at 2am in a venue called The Shed in Luton and then travelling home fills me with dread.
A: We’ll do it when it’s right to do it. Rather than forcing it and going through the motions, we’ll do it when it’s necessary and to the best of our ability.
So you work with a lot of vocalists across different genres, is there someone you’ve got your eye on that you really, really wanna work with?
J: Always. There are unrealistic names we could throw out there all day long.
A: Realistically, and I don’t think it’s a million miles away, coming back to the grime thing, Bugzy Malone from Manchester, I think he’s great, I’d love to do some work with him.
J: There’s a guy that I think is based somewhere around London called Jay Prince, you’ll hear stuff on Soulection and stuff like that, I really like his vibe. It might be a little bit late for him.
A: But there’s definitely people that we’re always trying to reach out to and work with.
Anyone from Sheffield?
A: We’ve worked with a lot of people in Sheffield. As far as right now, people from Sheffield that we wanna work with, we are working with.
Tell me what is the best thing about Sheffield?
J: Not its roads.
A: Not its inner city driving and one way systems. Jamie’s got a bit of a thing because he’s not from Sheffield. He’s from next to Sheffield, he’s from Doncaster, so they all hate on the Sheffield folk.
J: Steel city, shut up.
A: There’s certain things in Sheffield that people from just outside Sheffield don’t like because they’re not involved with it. There’s a thing called Henderson’s Relish, which is really nice.
J: You put it on everything and it makes everything better.
A: This is someone from Doncaster talking! The best thing from Sheffield, I’d say Sheffield United but that’s just because I support them. I’m there everyday, it’s so hard to pick something.
J: It’s got many a good quality.
A: This is one I’ll say, you might even back me up on this, the people’s attitude in Sheffield is very welcoming. Everyone’s welcoming and will give you time.
J: A lot better than where I’m from. Where I’m from, if you’ve not been on steroids and got a tribal tattoo that just comes up on your neck a bit to let people know you’ve got one, to let them know you might be hard [laughs], then you’re not welcome in Doncaster. But the losers win and the winners lose where I’m from, in Sheffield it’s the other way around.
A: The best thing about Sheffield is the people, they’re very welcoming and very nice people. And the older Sheffield people are too nice.
J: Yeah it’s alright, just get a train there and get taxis when you’re there so you don’t have to think about turning down a bus lane and getting fined.
I’ll bear that in mind. So what’s the worst thing you’ve ever gotten in trouble for?
J: Didn’t you have an incident when you had to get out of Germany or something?
A: Yeah but I don’t think we’re legally allowed to talk about that [laughs]. It was Italy. Not to get out of. I’ve been to Italy twice in my life and both times there’s been ambulances and I’ve had to leave. Not like I’ve been kicked out, that paints me in a bad light, I’m not violent, I haven’t been kicked out but it’s been like “I think we should leave”. I’ll tell you what, this is one, in our studio they like to send emails because there’s an office downstairs and we share a kitchen, and they like to send emails if you leave a dirty mug out or a dirty bowl that you’ve used and not washed instantly. That’s probably the most common thing we get in trouble about.
J: Even on a personal level, I still live at home with my mum and dad at the minute, and I feel the kettle up too much, more than necessary and my dad hates that. I see it as boil more…
A: No that’s not how it works, you’re over boiling.
J: Sometimes I’m there before they’re there and I think if I boil it now, they’ll only have to wait 30 seconds for it to re-boil.
A: You shouldn’t do that. Think of the limescale.
J: I know, I get done for it.
A: That’s not bad, we’re not bad people.
If that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, over boiling the kettle, I think you’re alright!
A: That’s nice.
J: It’s a bad thing I’ve been caught with.
A: That’s leading onto something else right there!
J: We’ll leave that there [laughs].
If you could fill a swimming pool with anything, what would it be and why?
A: I know what yours would be.
J: I know but it’s not PG.
A: Porn [laughs].
J: No it’s not that! [laughs].
A: Musical equipment. Can I take it out of the swimming pool?
You can do whatever you want with it.
A: Oh yeah, I’ll fill it with musical equipment. Every company’s newest product and their oldest product, I’m covering my back there.
J: See I can’t help but want it to be something I can swim in. I like yours but I don’t want to just second that.
A: Mine’s a bit of a clever arse answer.
J: Yours was good, it’s beneficial.
A: I think you were meaning something more like lemonade.
No, no it can be whatever you want.
A: Musical equipment, trainers.
J: You can’t swim in trainers.
A: You can’t swim in musical equipment! It’s like this room full of…
J: The Aquatics Centre’s worth of…
A: Apple products?
J: It’s all a bit techy now.
You like swimming so you can just say water.
A: No, no I’d still take all that equipment.
J: I’d send that water to needy kids.
A: No you can’t drink that chlorine water.
J: I’ll get it purified. I don’t know, I’d get it filled with whitebait [laughs].
A: Whitebait! [laughs].
J: I had whitebait last night and it was amazing, so whitebait. A pool filled with whitebait.
Ok, I can promise you no one’s said that before.
A: Have you asked that question a lot? What were other answers?
Different types of alcohol, marshmallows, puppies, things like that.
A: It’s alright. Musical equipment though, I’m thinking of my career.
J: I’m thinking of whitebait, something I’m gonna be sick of after.
A: And now you’ve got a swimming pool of it, imagine.
Last question - what would you do to make the world a better place?
A: It’s gone a bit Miss World now hasn’t it?
J: I’m gonna say something that’s gonna be controversial and it might make you all judge me but I’m gonna say it. I think follow the Dutch model. Legalise it. Stop being so silly.
A: Yeah, he’s not wrong. I’ll probably second that to be honest.
J: That would change the world.
A: It would change a lot, a hell of a lot.
J: Debt would go down.
A: That’s a very deep answer. You could have just said make it rain rice, I don’t know [laughs].
J: But yeah legalise it, it’s that time now.
A: There’s a lot of money to be made there for people, for jobs, for lives, for countries.
J: In case they said no to that, I think we should all pay a little bit more tax, and then however the maths works out and depending on your tax bracket, you get a life bonus, so you just get 5 grand.
A: What for being alive?
J: Yeah. You pay a bit more on tax on everything, a little bit more.
A: But you could just save that yourself.
J: But it’s not always ideal. What about a man who isn’t meant to be homeless but becomes homeless, irrelevant of that, in three years time, he’s getting that life bonus. And if your tax bracket’s higher, you get 15 grand.
A: But he’s not paying it.
J: But I don’t mind that. We’re saying about making the world better.
A: I’ll tell you what, you go and legalise it and give every homeless man…
J: Oh no, no, I’m not hands on. I want the world to be good but I don’t wanna do nowt about it. Thank you [laughs].
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