Ugly Duckling: Playing with the leftovers

Welcome back to the land of oz, your new Meatshake stage show sounds like a bit of an extravaganza, tell me a bit about the concept and how it came about?

We wanted to try something new for the live show. We figured people must have been getting bored with our usual presentation so we decided to spice it up a bit. Our latest releases “Taste the Secret” and “Leftovers” are theme-oriented records so we wanted to make the live show bring some of that theme to life for the audience. We’ll have cow suits, fast-food uniforms and real Meatshakes for the crowd!

You are bringing a special guest, MC Pigeon John, member of “La Symphony”, what is it he brings to the show?

Pigeon John is a talented artist and performer who is like nothing you’ve ever seen. He will do a live set of his own music, which I am confident the Australian audiences will really enjoy. He brings high-energy, incredible vocal skill and a very strange humor to the stage. He also contributes to the Ugly Duckling show by playing four different characters including a “Meatshake” motivational speaker that makes Tony Robbins look like a high school guidance-counselor.

Your last release “Taste the Secret” was a huge success here, do you anticipate the same level of success for “Leftovers?”

We hope people will like “Leftovers”. It’s not as in-depth as the full-length album but it has some nice music for your late-night listening pleasure. We love Australia so, hopefully, we won’t disappoint anyone.

You’ve been doing this together for over 10 years now, in the beginning how hard was it to get people to listen to your sound considering how different it was to what was the in thing at the time?

It was very difficult for us to make a name for ourselves, but I think that can be said about anyone trying to get into any field. It takes time, hard work and talent and being that we’re not incredibly talented it mostly took time and hard work, especially considering that our music isn’t about sex, drugs or violence and I shouldn’t speak so presumptuously because we still have an incredibly long way to go as far as “making it”. Hopefully, we can create music that people enjoy and make a living and it’s really that simple.

How do you find the crowds across the globe respond to your sound, do the US crowds react differently to your fans in the UK and Europe or here for example?

As far as reaction goes, most crowds, regardless of national origin, are similar, although the Aussies have been especially kind to Ugly Duckling. I think this is because most people who like our stuff have a similar musical sensibility and humor. We feel that our “fans” are usually the coolest kind of people.

What can we expect from your new mini album?

“Leftovers” is a collection of new songs, material that we couldn’t fit onto “Taste the Secret” and a sizzling remix of “A Little Samba”. Actually, one of the songs called “Elevator Music” is a tune we wrote almost 10 years ago so, if you are so inclined, you can analyse our progress since the early 90s. I think it’s a cool little album with some interesting stuff. It also contains our first ever collaboration with hip-hop legend Grand Puba on a foot-stomping ditty called “Something’s Going Down Tonight”. There’s a song titled after Einstein’s favorite snack called “Almond Rocha” and a socio-political commentary/Beach Boys-style harmony tune called “Celebrity”. It is an interestingly funky collection.

Does Ugly Duckling have a mission statement? Say for instance I were to try and convince someone who had never heard you guys before to come along to your show, what would you suggest I tell them in order to convince them it was worth their dollars?

I don’t know if we have a well-defined mission statement but I would say that we try our best to make a quality brand of hip-hop music and put on an entertaining live show. If you like typical, top-40 rap then you might find Ugly Duckling to be a little too heavy or silly. We love soul, funk, big band, bossa nova, jazz, rock music and rhythmic humor stuffed with sarcasm and smiles. So deal with that.

I’ve read that Einstein has one of the biggest beat collections around; approximately how much vinyl does he own?

Einstein is upstairs working on new tracks at the moment and there is so much vinyl in the room that I can barely fit through the door. It has been his life’s passion to this point. In fact, in the room I’m sitting in there must be at least 1,000 records in here because of overflow.

What is the deal with the dookie chain? Has it become something of a superstition, do you ever perform without it?

We haven’t performed without the dook in years and years. Honestly, Rodney started wearing it because he felt it would disguise his lackluster DJ skills. We told him that we think he’s a very good DJ, we even wrote songs about him, but he continues to use the dookie as his performance crutch. But you know at least it’s a shiny crutch.

Who puts together your stage shows?

We all work on the show, the tricky part is that a great stage show takes time to develop so you have to do a lot of average shows before you learn to do a good one. Hopefully, we’ll have all of the crap shows out of our system before we get Down Under.

Your Australian tour looks like it’s set at a frantic pace, 7 shows in 7 cities in just 11 days, are they always this intense?

It’s funny that you should call this tour frantic because we usually don’t take any days off, so this seems pretty laid back. The hardest bit about touring is making a profit and not killing yourself trying to get to the next city on time. We just got back from a European tour where we played every night for 6 weeks and just about went nuts but I know of bands who tour a lot more than us and would consider us whining pansies.

What’s the best part of touring as part of Ugly Duckling?

The best part of touring is, definitely, the shows. You’ve traveled all day, arrived in a town, had something to eat, checked into a stinky hotel room and now you get to do your thing and, when all goes well, amuse some lovely people with your own brand of entertainment.

And what is the worst?

Being away from home, lack of sleep, fast-food, drunk idiots, pumping gas when it’s freezing cold, driving for 9 hours a day and squabbling over little differences with band mates for weeks on end.

How do you feel about the direction of hip hop at this point in time?

I’m not sure if there is any one direction. I hope that people are trying their darndest to create the best music they can possibly make. I also hope that audiences will reward these bands and not get sucked into the mass-media music seduction. We believe that music is first, and foremost, about music and secondly about fashion, street cred, drugs, gunshot wounds, hairstyles, big-name producers, sex, videos, a panel of judges rating performances, shock value and interviews.

You can catch ugly duckling and their traveling Meatshake show on stage at the following venues in June and July:

Jun 25, Melbourne @ Prince of Wales
Jun 26, Sydney @ The Gaelic Club
Jun 30, Canberra @ The Academy
Jul 1, Adelaide @ Planet
Jul 2, Brisbane @ The Arena
Jul 3, Sydney @ Hordern Pavilion
Jul 4, Perth @ Monkey Bar