Crazy P interview – “The message is usually the same, it’s always the powers that be fucking it up for everybody.”
The prolific live house band reflect on people and community in an age of self-centredness
Crazy P have flexed their curatorial muscles this month, announcing a surprise remix album of their 2019 album Age Of The Ego’. While the original album drew heavily on darker political themes relevant to the time, it rings truer even today, in a post-pandemic, post-Brexit, post-Bojo UK.
At the time of the original LP’s release, we heard irony in its juxtaposing of deep vocal house with intense political messaging. It seemed to find solace in the prevailing madness. Now, the remix album continues the charge, in a world that seems to have just grown madder, with new remixes from Gerd Janson, Ron Basejam, DJ Nature and even the late Soulphiction showing up.
“We poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this baby so we were keen to get the remix package right,” said Jim Baron of the band. “Everyone was chosen by us as fans in the first instance, and together we’ve achieved exactly what we set out to build. A diverse sounding package that doesn’t compromise on quality.”
Reflecting on today’s culture of narcissism, individualism and ego, we caught up with the band – Danielle Moore, Jim Baron and Chris ‘Hot Toddy’ Todd – for a good old chin-wag over the remix package.
‘Age Of The Ego’ had a strong message, both denigrating and making light of the UK’s political and economic situation through your trademark lenses of funk, disco and house. But May 2019 was pre-pandemic, pre-Ukraine, and as of now pre-cabinet meltdown… how do you think the original album translates, three years later?
DANIELLE: The general message has kind of come to fruition, it’s still relevant.
JIM: I think a lot of records moaning about the current situation at that time, they always translate well, in any given generation or scenario.
CHRIS: The message is usually the same, it’s always the powers that be fucking it up for everybody.
DANIELLE: Particularly when its not been a major shift in politics, when its the hierarchy, theres not been a shift to change anything really, it’s everyone for themselves. Very much the age of the ego still.
You guys were dealing with some quite serious issues on the album, with lots of the tunes either being both either quite personal or political. But disco and house are stereotypically quite ‘light’ or ‘whimsical’ genres, contrasting to the quite earnest topics the album deals with. Do you perceive your sound as making light of a sad situation?
JIM: Well it’s hard to kind of pigeonhole the sound, because it mainly came from jam sessions with the full band. It also came from a shared emotion, it wasn’t just lyrical content, it was a connectivity between the five of us in a room at the same time, so the actual kind of genre of music is really hard to pur your finger on. it was easier for that reason for me to play around with lyrics a bit more, it wasn’t just a disco-soul sound, whereas usually I’d have gone for more loving, emotional lyrics.
CHRIS: It was a bit deeper.
JIM: And I guess it fitted that landscape a little better than a pumping disco number.
CHRIS: It was kinda heavier, barefooted.
JIM: There’s elements creeping in, although musically it’s still a departure.
DANIELLE: Yeah, the other day someone was saying there’s a new modern way of thinking that you have to deal with your anger and suppress it, but I think you should be angry about a lot of things, you’ve got to have an outlet for that anger. We were lucky to have such a well timed outlet.
What was the impetus to make a remix album of ‘Age Of The Ego’ in the first place?
CHRIS: I don’t think we did any remixes for the record originally, and we were a fans of a lot of the producers on there, we’d spoken to them about doing mixes for other stuff. it just felt like there was loads of good source material to go at, and it would work to get some different interpretations of that material. And our friends who’ve done remixes are all different stylistically. That was the plan, to get some radically different interpretations of what we’d done.
There are both fresh-faced and time-honoured artists on the LP, with a remix from DJ Nature sitting happily with Somethin’ Sanctified, for example. Do you find this sort of dialogue between generations important?
CHRIS: We didn’t consciously do that, but it worked out quite well like that, there’s quite a broad spectrum of producers. We do know the majority of them, but some we don’t. Medlar is quite a young lad, and Somethin’ Sanctified are some old friends.
JIM: They just said to “give us some parts”.
DANIELLE: Some people were just busy, we had many people on the list, but the end list we ended up with brought out a good range of artists.
Who else was on the list?
CHRIS: We had a huge Christmas card!
DANIELLE: There were some quite heavy hitters, and they were on the list cos we thought, “well, why not ask them?”. You know, like Moodymann and stuff, Carl Craig. We were like they’re not gonna say yeah, but let’s just ask. Anyway, they didn’t say yeah.
JIM: I think we had a bit of an affirmative from Moodymann but then he went missing for 6 months. So that was that. He was favourable for a bit, but then he went AWOL.
DANIELLE: Move D was on our list, I just don’t think he had time, I think that’s just how it works. People just don’t have that time spare. It just doesn’t fit sometimes. It was quite a chunky list, but you know, we’ve got some gooduns.
What led up to the remix from Soulphiction, and can you tell us a bit about what it was like working with him?
CHRIS: He was first on the list, really.
DANIELLE: We’re big fans of his music. We were really lucky to get that, really, we got the final remix thourgh before he passed away.
JIM: He did two remixes actually, he did two in different styles, and he gave us the choice.
Are we going to be able to hear the other remix, or is that well under wraps for now?
JIM: We just had to choose one in the end. He just gave us rough versions, and asked us which one we were favouring, so the other one wasn’t finished in the end.
What, in you guys’ opinion, makes for a good remix?
JIM: I suppose what makes an interesting remix – what makes you appreciate someone’s work – is when someone has done something fairly clever, but which takes something out of context. You don’t want something rehashed, just a house beat over something.
CHRIS: I think we had a problem with people doing stuff over our parts. We have a lot of live stems, and some guys, when working with them, have gone “oh, well I love this and I’m just gonna put my beats on top.” They haven’t really found something they can do and take something in another direction. They’ve just done something slightly different to the original and it’s barely a change. But I think we’d be lucky here because everyone has found a different focus a little bit, a little bit of vocal and things like that, and I think that’s wicked.
JIM: The Hot Toddy remix, for that one it was finding new ways to treat the samples, cutting it up to build new riffs and patterns, building new riffs and guitar parts. I did have an idea to make it more sort of a deep housey thing.
It’s going to be a huge summer for you guys, and we’re huge fans of your live show. How’s the live show looking, currently?
DANIELLE: It’s been mental already. We’ve had the summer solstice, so the nights are getting darker. Festival season’s kicked in, it started at the end of May really, so imminently we’ve got Love International and various festivals in the UK, and so we feel really fortunate to be attacking the gigs again.
JIM: And then we’ve got some more writing to do, finishing off some ideas.
DANIELLE: We’ve also curated an album in association with Ralph Lawson from 20/20, which has involved us getting together people who we’re fans of to submit a track, an unreleased track, or specifically a written track. We’ve got a Crazy P track on there, as well as a Ron Basejam track, a Hot Toddy one, and I’ll be featuring with someone else as well. Our track on there is called ‘People’.
JIM: I’m sure we can do better than people, though. Maybe something in brackets afterwards. What do they mean, people? In what sense? It’s a working title.
Where can we catch you playing next?
CHRIS: It’s a festival in Cumbria called Coast Roads. We’re heading up there on Saturday, and then we’ve got Love International in Croatia!
Jude Iago James
Buy Age Of The Ego Remixes here: