Before Plump DJs, there was breakbeat – and plenty of it. But it wasn’t until Lee Rous and Andy Gardner took this sleeping giant into the Laboratoire Plump that the genre was given growling definition. Sculpting the beast with Wurlitzers, Korgs, and curious quirks, the London duo made this entity in their own image. And in every step of the way…everything the Plump DJs have created has carried a beating heart, organically fermented funk, and most importantly…a personality that’s resonated through souls from Soho to Sydney. It’s not just breakbeat – it’s an incredible life force disguised as music, writes sixthdegree.
So Lee wins Time Out magazine’s ‘Best Looking DJ’ poll. Andy thinks it’s ‘hilarious’. Press releases are dispatched around the planet about this definitive accolade before we can even say Eargasm. And has anyone taken the liberty of honoring the parents? Bueller? Anyone handed the olds a plaque that reads: ‘For taking the Time Out to contribute to the gene pool, and for your disco parenting, Thank-you’?
We all nod and agree – we knew this was coming. Lee is “chuffed and embarrassed” and grabs the opportunity to make modest fun of the situation in true Plump spirit. “Wow,” he then pauses, continuing in a put-on but sincerely dorky voice ”... I never thought I’d be a heart-frob. All those wasted years as a lad, playing darts on my own in my bedroom thinking ‘am I ever going to get liked by anyone’.”
Rous lets out a rumbling, retiring laugh. According to him, there was a glitch in the system. Rigged voting. Sure. But beneath the surface of the dual handsomeness of both Lee and Andy, lurks an even sweeter disposition in the rich waters of this Plump binary. There’s something that sets apart those who are just alright to those who are outta sight on many levels. Not surprisingly, their music beholds the very qualities of the latter: innocently fun to the naked ear with an elusive complexity that funks the innards.
Though just like everyone else, these comely chaps -who broke beats and hearts during their tours in Australia (Plumps’ maiden tour was in 2001 with Lee only) – have had their knock backs; one of which, came from Wall of Sound before they wrote their signatures on the Fingerlickin’ dotted line. “At the time it did seem like a big thing,” humbly tells Lee of the WoS situation. “It was just three loosely made records on a crappy cassette tape that I was just wanting to get a few people to listen to.”
“Wall of Sound have done amazingly well over the past few years, maybe if we’d have got involved they would have done amazingly badly. You can never tell how a certain combination of people is going to work.”
And at the moment, they’ve got a lot to be happy about. Lee’s sprung out of bed in the early hours of the morning because he’s excited about what’s happening in the eve. The Plumpers have a brand new bag they’re about to launch called Eargasm. A “debut” artist album that’s been gaining weight in the Laboratoire for over two years. An obese mosaic of thing that Lee and Andy have nurtured with great attention and care, fed with incredible amounts of collected samples, and burped with the sounds of big time guest vocalists.
The ‘Godfather of Electro’, Gary Numan – that scary guy from the 70s and 80s who’s still scary – has lent his scariness soul on Pray 4 U. It’s an electro piece about a tortured soul telling God to f*ck off. And then you have Lamb’s Louise Rhodes singing about the beauty of grace and gratitude in the downtempo Morning Sun. Two tunes are up completely different alleys, showing a polarity of the Plump DJs’ musical landscape – one’s a Monet and the other an Edvard Munch (for those who are visually inclined).
Given the landslide acclaim of A Plump Night Out, Lee and Andy could have easily slipped into the lush comfort zone that success endows by producing more Scrams and Galaxys and letting us experience a Plumpified version of Groundhog Day on dancefloors. Though, they didn’t. APNO set the foundations of their musical architecture and Eargasm is the ongoing dedication to building the house that displays rooms previously unopened (and even with Eargasm, only 13 tracks out of a possible 20 were used). Lee’s chuffed with this analogy. “From where we’re sitting,” he carries on, “we gotta keep evolving – we can’t just keep churning the same stuff out because it’s wasting our life.”
“The whole way we got together, and the whole way me and Andy work is about experimentation in the studio. We can’t keep regurgitating the same thing; we’d both get really bored.”
But there’s nothing boring about these larger than life guys, as I’m reminded when someone screams “iz nayce” down the line. Suddenly I wonder if there’s been a crosswire to Borat in Kazakhstan and if we’re about to compare mustaches. No. It’s still Lee in London…with his answer to how the Laboratoire Plump shaking. The laughter eventually stops. “It’s been bubbling away quite nicely,” he says, and gives fans a sneak peak at their latest floor ammo. “We’re making another bomb. I think we’re going to call it Rise.”
‘Just do your thing…’ Eddie Bo’s sampled vocal goes in The Funk Hits The Fan. “He sounds like James Brown on acid,” describes Lee of the man who just won a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to Soul and Funk (two styles of music both Lee and Andy have been highly influenced by during their formative years). “We had to clear the sample with his management, and there’s a story about how he listened to it, tapped his feet, and said ‘just make sure they credit me correctly’.”
“Big, big ups to Eddie Bo,” adds Rous.
And big, big ups to the Plump DJs? Two guys who have done their thing and seen the success hit the fan…again.
I’d love to be in your shoes right now, I had blurted out to Lee, thinking about the dawning excitement of the Eargasm feat. “They’re a bit big…you might keep falling over,” he had laughed, pointing to the fact that he, quite simply, has big groovy f*ckers.
Eargasm is out now through Fingerlickin’/Inertia.
