Friday, August 25, 2017

Interview with Figure.09


For the past few year or so I've been covering Crime and Punishment 2011 on this blog. The birmingham group make an eclectic mix of grime, electronica and heavy metal. one of the groups founder members Dan is going solo and releasing his solo début 'Casket' on September 1st. Much like his solo career this interview is a bit more serious than the often hilarious ramblings that made up my interviews with Crime and punishment 2011. 

Dan: I feel like I’ve proper calmed down, compared to when I first started Crime & Punishment 2011. I feel like I’ve progressed both musically and as a human. Which is nice. I feel like I’m definitely a lot calmer and not someone who’s making ridiculous statements anymore. Its nice to be a be a bit more chill and just be myself.
Me so is that what the album’s about? Being more chill being more yourself?
Dan: Not necessarily. A running theme of the album is believing in yourself and not really caring what other people think of you. I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people to be honest.  I think some people are going to listen to some of the songs and think is the same person who was spitting on FUBAR or rucksack or whatever. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by the song Joe’s on Joe’s showed a side of him that I don’t think a lot of people knew he had.
Me: so it’s not just Joe screaming?
Dan: no, he’s doing more spoken word stuff. When I showed my other half the song we did she cried so that was sick. This is definitely my most honest work.
Me: I could tell when I saw you perform some of these songs At The Sunflower Lounge that these were more personal songs and that one of them was very specifically about your other half.
Dan: Well one of them was, each song is about a very specific subject. Like one song is just about love in general. Obviously I’ve got some songs that are just about me being a sick MC and then there are some songs that are just, like, dealing with darkness and stuff.
Me: Is it the same themes that you’d get with Crime and Punishment 2011?
Dan: To be honest no, not really. There are a couple of songs on there that could have been crime and punishment songs if Joe had been on them.  But that’s just because it’s the kind of music that I like to listen to. I’m trying to make each song on this as different as possible. Obviously, Salem Witch Trials came out 3 or 4 days ago and the response to that has been a lot better than I expected. But to be honest it hasn’t really set the tone for the whole album. I’ve tried to make it as much like a proper album as possible, like I’ve put a couple of skits in there. There’s three main themes on the album. Frustration at the world, not feeling like you can be yourself and appreciating what you’ve got around you. When I heard about Chester Bennington it made me feel that I needed to Put these songs on the album. Like one songs called Treehouse, that is a song I wrote but then didn’t want to record because I thought I might offend, well not offend but it does concern many opinions that people close to me have had about my musical endeavours and its kind of me just saying like ‘fuck you’ I’m not going to be offended by what people think of me. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cunt in some band, who I don’t like or if you’re my best friend. I think a lot of it’s going to really surprise people.  I’m trying to do this as properly as possible. Crime and Punishment is in no way dead, I think it’s good that were having this downtime because when we come back I think we will be stronger. If someone comes away from the album feeling an emotion then I feel I will have done my job.


After this we talked at length about Dan's new change to vegetarianism and about the music that inspires him. He admits to taking 'quite a bit of inspiration' from XXXTENTACION, and while he's not really into 'the soundcloud rap thing' he thinks it's good that 'people are being more open with themselves'. He cites other UK artists such as Manga St Hilare and Dave as being influences and while he isn't tying himself down to grime the next single off 'Casket' most likely be 'Dragon' which is the grimiest song on the record. The production has been mostly handled by Crime & Punishment 2011's Jason 'Pink Violence' Tyler and while the album will initially be released on Bandcamp he is later aiming to push it further and have it on major streaming platforms soon.


https://figure09.bandcamp.com/track/salem-witch-trials

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