Some people search the skies for heaven, some people search for heaven on earth. Searching a little closer to home, search no further than Scott Herren, the man behind the enormously lauded Prefuse73 (Scott’s admitted first love is Hip-Hop), and today’s topic – Savath & Savalas. Listening to his music, no matter what guise released under, absorbing the, at times, intense emotional ambience is like a fog lifting from the sea, and seeing for the first time how truly beautifully green it really is.

In 2002, Scott Herren brought together the Savath & Savalas team to bring forth the magical ‘Rolls & Waves’ album, on which the beautiful ‘Folk Song For Cello’ is the stand out piece. The musicality and initiative shown by Scott on this project is breath-taking and quite inspiring and many artists have dubbed this release as one of ‘those’ albums that shone a light on new directions.

Working, releasing and touring as Prefuse73 has given Scott Herren the opportunity of going outside of himself and his environs and really experiencing the world as a source of musical inspiration, and with the impact of the 9/11 incident in New York being felt as far as the US City of Atlanta, it lost one of its finest citizens when Scott decided enough was indeed enough and got out of the USA, heading for his father’s home country of Spain. A chance encounter with a beautiful, naturally musical woman led to the hanging up of the Prefuse73 tap-shoes for the present time, and all attentions turned to this most outrageously ambitious project and the second release from Savath & Savalas.

Scott Herren is a modest man. Down to earth and with no pretensions or expectations he explains some of the How’s, Who’s, Where’s, and Whys for ITM. “Basically, I never really played instruments growing up. My mum played but what I retained was, I could write drummers music – its’ the way it ended up. Um… I think it comes most from, well, from a drummers perspective. I grew up learning the drums and taking that role. I want to do more – or just like within that realm push it as loose as I can, like with my last produced stuff (Prefuse73)”

With the horrors of 9/11 still fresh in the mind, and wanting to take an alternate direction to his peers, Scott Herren set his sights on the Middle-East and a refreshing stay in Istanbul encouraged Scott to seek out something fresh, something new and something completely satisfying in so many ways. “Basically it was a life realization – I just went there right after 9/11. Like, all the peace in that place. All the beautiful, beautiful peace in those places. Like, I don’t know it was all so peaceful and, you know, in the States it’s just crazy. It’s based on the Muslim community and so peaceful that I found it amazing. The cultures are still so important to the people there. Obviously you don’t find that in the US. It’s inspiring to me on another level. As a person it was a revolution. As a culture, the music is still so much a part of the culture and the history is retained and still, like, ah… I don’t know. People take part in it. They take part in their culture and pride in it. They celebrate it, which is really kind of beautiful”

Being in a strange land at a very strange time in world history meant that some quick thinking was required and having no place to live upon arrival in Barcelona, Scott quickly made friends and moved in with Eva Puyuelo Muns, a Catalan native whom had never sung before, but being a likeminded soul as Scott, agreed to write and sing with him for his latest Savath & Savalas release ‘Apropa’t’. Scott cites Spanish folk music and Brazilian Psychaedelia as his major influences. “It was my own cultural exploration you know. Um… and then it was a collaboration with Eva and ah… yeah it was just a natural occurrence. What is Brazilian Psychaedelia?- ok well – I mean these were the things that we were listening to during the time of the making of the record. It’s like Spanish folk music and Spanish psychaedelic music and Brazilian psychaedelic music. It’s the same as any other psychaedelic music and it’s political. I mean, like, these are the things that, like, me and Eva were listening to which inspired us the most. What was inspiring and what turned me on were the arrangements, the instrumentation, the vocal harmonies. All of the above. It was something that I’ve always been into but when you find out about music that’s actually like, closest to your own culture, it hits you in a different way. You know what I mean?”

Of course, with that much music inside a person busting out every now and then and making it’s way onto other peoples labels, isn’t it just logical that Scott Herren would initiate his own label, Eastern Developments? “Well, we started out as just friends. We were invited by Tribe and Strata, labels from Detroit, as a base to collaborate with other artists from Detroit and give them the chance to release records. That’s how it started out, and basically it just grew and you know we’re just keeping it going. We’ve got so many releases! We had a slight distribution problem that’s been taken care of and this year there’s tonnes comin’ out”

With Savath & Savalas initially being an opportunity for Scott to explore the actual hands-on musicianship of playing music (as opposed to programming the MPC), this will be the second time Scott’s toured as a band and the second time he’s visited Australia. “Um… (Savath & Savalas), it’s a 7 piece band and, um… there are two singers – Eva and Juan Menina, and then there’s other friends of mine who are just playing in the band, like, you know, like, any tour you know, with a band I guess. I don’t know. With prefuse73 I toured as a band, in that, it looks like we’re a band. It was only 3 people but this will be 7 people. I’ve never toured with this many people on stage. I’d like to do more. More and more musicians on stage. Yeah!”

Savath & Savalas, headed by the tremendously talented and super likeable Scott Herren will be in Australia and playing gigs near you soon. If you don’t care about music and you couldn’t give a shit what you listen to – don’t go. Otherwise, this gigs for you.

Savath & Savalas new album ‘Apropa’t’ is out now through Warp/Creative Vibes. To read ITM’s review click HERE.