Sunday 6 November 2011

FRANK LINDSAY Interview

Secret Admirer caught up with Frank Lindsay to talk about the important things in life: beats.

What’s the concept behind your alter-ego Sigmund Frued?
Nothing much really, just something I could release beats under. Sort of, do some MCing as well. Yeah it just came about because I was making beats and I wanted just a clichéd name. And then I heard it in a song, never really knew who he was before but read up on him and saw that he was a pretty famous psychologist.
He had some really weird ideas.
(Laughs) Yeah yeah!
What made you want to go into beat making and production?
Just growing up on hip hop really, just listening to Wu-Tang then sort of listening to MadLib and that. After I started listening to that, I just wanted to get a sampler really bad. I got one for Christmas, started just finding breaks and stuff. That’s how it started.
Do you make beats for any certain rappers or singers?
There’s not many out there in Birmingham. There’s probably plenty on YouTube I could hook up with, it’s just getting the time to do it. I just do it with my friends now really. I want to get a little crew going as well. Just some people to spit over tracks.
Why did you start the club night Fantastic Damage?
I met this guy Ray, and we found out that we both liked Cannibal Ox and El-P. And there was no nights putting on that sort of music. There was a lot of mainstream hip-hop stuff going on. So we just thought we would get together and put a night on. Somewhere like Moseley, which is a sort of hub for like good stuff. We just thought we’d put it on basically.
Do you think the world needs to be a bit more educated on left field hip hop?
Yeah, yeah! Definitely man. There is so many good rappers out there that people don’t know about. Because they only stick to stuff that gets fed to them.
What kind of stuff do you play in your DJ sets?
My sets, I like sort of mixing Wu-Tang era stuff with Def Jux records style but also mixing it in with Stones Throw records. The whole Californian beat scene as well, a bit of everything. I don’t stick to one genre.
Do you feel like you are making an impact on the local scene at all?
I hope so. I just hope people listen to my beats or come to Fantastic Damage.

Is there a reason behind the name Fantastic Damage?
It’s El-P’s album cover, I mean album name. I thought it sounded pretty good for a hip hop night. I thought it would be a good idea to take it from the album of one of the main guys in the genre. That’s where it came from anyway.
Did you want to do something different went Savant stopped making music?
I was sort of doing beats anyway when I was in Savant. There was a gap when we didn’t have band practice or anything. So it became really easy to just go home, go upstairs and just sit on your PC or whatever and make beats on it. Instead of like channelling your free into playing Xbox, you channel it into making beats.
Are there any producers that you want to collaborate with?
I do stuff with my friend Kaben, he’s like in my group of friends that I hang about with a lot. He makes chillstep, that ambient sort of dubstep. He’s pretty well respected on the internet, he gets put on this channels dedicated to stuff like that. He got over 20,000 views in under two days. He’s a good guy to have, to like do collaborations with. I did a track with him where I MC’d over it. And it sounded really good. I’ve also been talking to this guy called Tim, he’s an MC and he wanted to do some stuff with me as well. But I don’t really know that many producers out there that make the kind of beats that I do. Or spit dry.
Do you ever intend to do any live shows with Sigmund Frued?
Yeah. I want to get round to making the set. That’ll be it, that’ll be when I want to do it. I’ve never got round to actually figuring out a set. Except for when I did my mix tape. I wouldn’t want it to be just me standing there on my own pressing buttons. I’d want to have some sort of MC with me. Just got to find the right people to do it with. I want to start doing live stuff. It’s just finding when to do it.
Are Savant ever going to do anything again?
Erm…probably not. We might just do the odd show just for the hell of it. We probably could write some good stuff now but I don’t really want to do it once we have already stopped it. That would be like trying to do something that has already been done.
It was more reflective of a certain time.
Yeah, about a year ago in 2010 we were doing loads of  stuff, we just couldn’t write any more. Writer’s block just hit us. It was just like, oh no, can’t do it. But I’ve got another band started up now.
Your new band Cock Roach?
Cock Roach, yeah man!
What do you intend to do with that?
Just write music, put stuff out. Get loads of gigs man.
Is it a return to the Savant style?
Not really, it’s something different. Just something you wouldn’t expect to hear. Just throw loads of different stuff in, loads of different influences. Try and create something new.
Have you got any plans for Sigmund Frued? Anything you are going to release in the future?
Get signed. I really want to get signed.
You have put some of your stuff out through Speech Thewapy.
Yeah, they are good guys. But it’s probably due to my laziness that more stuff doesn’t get put out. Stuff always breaks and I can’t…like, my computer is broken now so I can’t send anything over. So it’s probably my fault that we don’t release more stuff on there.
Have you sent your work to any other labels at all yet?
Nah, I’ll probably want to get some more tapes out. Maybe get an MC mix tape out as well rather than just beats. I’ll send that out and see what they say. Then see what I can do to make it better.
Cheers, thanks for the little interview.
It’s cool.



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