Stanton Warriors talk live tour plans

Last July, UK bass fiends Stanton Warriors tried something a little different for their slot at Glastonbury. Running through their originals with a cast of rappers and vocalists, the live ‘soundsystem’ set-up went down a storm. Now with the release of collab-heavy album The Warriors, Dom Butler and Mark Yardley are looking to bring the Stantons live experience to Australia.

Speaking to inthemix down the line from London, Butler enthuses about the Glastonbury performance. “It went off; we had guys stage-diving and stuff. It was a whole new frenzied thing. Having DJed for so many years, having that new experience of being in a kind of band is cool.”

Butler is quick to point out that, just like a Stantons DJ set, the energy never slackens. “The way we did it, I was mixing continuously, but dropping instrumental copies of their tunes,” he explains. “Then we’d play other tunes in between. I guess it’s more of a sound-system, which is the background I come from, watching the Wild Bunch crew who would later become Massive Attack. There’d be no stopping and starting; and different singers and rappers would jump in and do their thing.

“Mark’s got his keyboards and laptops out, so we can rip tunes apart live as well. So, is it live? Maybe semi-live! I get a bit bored if I go to a gig and it’s 12 songs from someone’s new album, all stopping and starting. We like to make it a dance party.”

Butler reveals the duo is in talks to do some “festival stuff” here before the year is out. “We’d like to do the whole live thing in Australia, and bring over at the very least [album guest] Hollywood Holt, because he’s a fucking amazing performer,” he says. “He’s got to the point now where M.I.A called him up because she wanted to be in one of his videos. She’s not even on the tune, just wanted to be in the video!”