From London to Brazil to Ibiza, UK globetrotters Layo & Bushwacka! are finally destined to return to Australian shores this month. The duo are set to build on their stack of sold out club shows and rampacked festival floors when they last toured with Good Vibrations several years ago, and everything is pointing to their return as being one of the most highly anticipated tours for 2008. Easter Weekend will see London’s finest relaunching their tour de force GU033 Rio De Janeiro from the seminal Global Underground record label: the most interesting thing about the release is that while one features the typical latest club bangers, the other is a collection of seminal hits taken form the early days of dance culture.
Arguably one of the UK’s best dance exports, Layo & Bushwacka!’s success could possibly be attributed to their diverse musical backgrounds. The extroverted Bushwacka!’s former years saw him train as a classical percussionist, while Layo’s roots lay in his joint ownership of legendary London’s nightclub The End along with Mr C of The Shamen. It was their mutual love affair for the dancefloor and affinity for “…good people, good parties, good music. Acid house, basically”, that cemented their relationship. How fortunate we all are then that this relationship has remained strong and blossomed over the past 15 years. ITM caught up with Layo and heard his thoughts on life, music, love and the desire to not be labelled boring.
So Layo, its been three years since your last visit to Australia. Why so long?
You see the thing with Australia because it’s so far, you have to do a big tour to make it work and generally we like to leave it a year. Our time, the timing of the festival and some other things meant we slipped a year. I’ve been three times to Australia and every time we have had a fantastic time.
What can we expect to hear from your sets when you arrive in March?
Obviously we stick to our core values of how we are into music but it has developed over time. There’s a lot of funky techno, minimal, house, tribal, electro, breaks etc. We try to move around in those styles depending on tracks we particularly like and the mood of crowd. We’ve also been in the studio for the past four or five months so there will also be a lot of new dancefloor stuff from us.
the first CD from your GU033 Rio album was a massive nod to the rave and acid house culture the late 80’s and early 90’s. Will they be featured in your sets?
Yes we will be putting some in. The reason we did the CD like that is because Andy who runs Global wanted a CD that reflected our history and the current scene. We always put in those historical tracks to keep the crowd rocking.
It was a departure from the usual ‘Greatest Hits’ collection and featured some rather obscure ones whilst still remaining really vital. What was the reasoning behind that?
Well the thing is, if you put in the really well known ones on it, everyone is like ‘boring!’ A lot of great tunes are only good in the moment and don’t achieve classic status in the big scheme of things.
Considering the style of music you played back then, who or what is your major influence now?
Music wise, most of what comes out of Germany. However, I am starting to find that minimal is starting to need a little bit more warmth and soul to the music. I seem to be getting into quite a lot of deep house with quite a lot of toughness, quite a lot of emotion and quite a lot of percussion in it. It can move around though. I can feel like that for three or four months then some other vibe can come along. Recently you can get to a point when the crowd is rocking and you can still go quite deep and make it tough. It’s a good zone for a party.
Considering Love Story was one of the greatest dance records of the last 10 years, how difficult was it not to remix it and put it on the new album?
The thing with a song like Love Story is, it’s very difficult to write another song like it. You see a song like that is an accident. A tune getting that big is just you’ve hit on something that everyone gets into. It’s not like you intend to go into the studio to write a track like that and if we had put it on GU033, it would have been like a statement that we are completely caught up only in that. The truth is that even if it takes you two or three years to move on and find a new zone that everyone is into, you have to push for that. I think if we had put it on there, a lot of people would have been quite quick to say we don’t do anything else. You have to feel you have made the right statement as an artist when releasing an album.
The GU033 album was inspired by Rio. How much are you enamored by the place? Would you consider making it your home?
My girlfriend is from Brazil. We will definitely be here for the next three or four years. But when you fall in love, raise kids etc you have to strike a balance the other way. So yes, I can imagine myself living there.
You and Bushwacka! DJing together, is that still the biggest thrill for you?
It’s so much a part of what I’ve done, the answer is, yes I love it. I also like it when we DJ separately. At The End we do this thing where we play for eight hours. Two on our own, two together, two on our own and two together and I really enjoy that because you get a different expression. DJing together is our history and I’m very happy with it. I like the fact that I’m in a partnership.
How much of an influence has The End and Mr C been on your careers?
Enormous. Through the end I have been exposed to a whole wealth of DJs and music that I would never have heard of I hadn’t been there. And without Mr C I would never have been a DJ, there would never have been an End. Without the two there would never have been a Layo and Bushwacka!
And finally, what is the biggest dance song of all time?
Lil Louis French Kiss.
If you’re after a set steeped in dance history that also has a very firm eye on the future, catch Layo & Bushwacka! at the following dates…
Fri 21 Mar – Darkbeat 5th Birthday Party, Melbourne
Sat 22 Mar – Gaelic Club, Sydney
Sun 23 Mar – Empire Hotel, Brisbane
And here’s a clip of the boys talking about what went into the creation of their Global Underground CD…
