Restrictions make us free. Interview with Scroobius Pip
Interview with Scroobius Pip
By Simone Achermann
David Meads, alias Scroobius Pip, is a British musician and word artist. In this interview, he talks about why he thinks that trendy Londoners are not free, why he feels that his speech impediment when he was a child made him creative and how positive youth movements can improve society. His pseudonym – taken from the poem The Scroobious Pip by Edward Lear – refers to the story of a creature in search of its identity, until it realises that it just is the Scroobious Pip and doesn’t fit into any kind of category. That is true for the musician, too.
In some of your songs, such as “Though Shalt Not”, you tell people what behaviour is right or not. Does music have the power to change society for the better?
It gives us the option to behave in a different way. Take the increasing knife crime in the poor areas of London, for example. In my dad’s day everybody had a knife as everybody was a boy scout, but they didn’t use them. So the problem is not the knives, but that the kids see no other option than playing gangsters. We need positive youth movements: not songs that are violent, but songs that are optimistic or that deal with existing problems in a critical, creative way. Not all music has to provide the kids with good examples, though. It’s good that there is music that is just there to offer an escape from everyday life. If all music were serious, it would stop being enjoyable. Serious music only works in contrast to purely entertaining music.
You criticize people particularly for being snobbish about their taste: the upper levels of society lay claim to classical music, kids in the record shops to punk. Does society ever really allow us to escape our background?
Yes, but it’s difficult. The song “Snob” is also about my own prejudice towards people with an affluent upbringing. My parents worked hard and I always have to fight my reservations about people with family money. But yes, I believe we can overcome our prejudices, just as we can overcome our upbringing. The trick is to do what you really want to and not to care about what others think. It’s a lesson I have learned from being in the public eye.
Are all the trendy art students in London a sign of an individualised society?
No, it’s just another hype. People nowadays let themselves be led by trends too much. They don’t choose for themselves what they like and don’t like - and only go to gigs in Shoreditch because it is cool to be part of a gig in a rough neighbourhood. They don’t understand that this is not Disneyland – and the result is that they get beaten up and mugged. It’s crazy how young people have made a genre out of individualism. Nowadays, being an individual means belonging to the movement of individuals, just like being a Goth or an Emo Kid.
So does the attempt to be as individual as possible mean that we are not free?
Yes, if individuality becomes an obligation. We do have more options to shape our own lives these days but we are still, necessarily, part of our surroundings and our daily experiences. So we can’t really do anything completely individual or entirely new. It’s the same with music. I combine many musical styles and my aim has never been to define a new genre. These are always influenced by each other anyway and critics are wrong to try to categorise music. Each piece of music should be judged on its own merits.
Is avoiding categorisation, then, the way to ensure the freedom of art?
I am not sure if the freedom of art is possible. I like the idea that art is just there and free, in the sense that anyone can see or hear it, and that it does not have to fit into any gallery or museum. But then again, artists need to make money with what they do. So art itself cannot be totally without restrictions – even if we don’t categorise it. Freedom probably comes from the artist’s attitude: their passion for the music or whatever it is they do. The fact that I can make a living out of what I like gives me freedom – at least in comparison to sitting at a desk from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Is that why you became a musician?
I didn’t really decide to become a musician. I was always into music. I used to play in little punk bands and worked in record stores for years. Also, it was not because of the music that I chose this way of living but because of the spoken word - finding ways of expressing myself in language.
What does freedom mean for you personally?
For me freedom means recognising limitations and dealing with them creatively. On the one hand, limits can make us more creative as human beings and, hence, more free. I grew up with a stutter, a speech impediment, which took away a level of the natural freedom of expression we take for granted and a level of freedom of speech. For example, I always had to think about what I was going to say in advance and, in order not to stutter, use different words than would naturally have come into my mind. But it was this restriction that made me creative, interested in language and, in the end, a spoken word artist. On the other hand, personal freedom doesn’t mean that everybody is able to do everything. Society is also made up of people who are more knowledgeable than us. If it is my right, in my music, to criticise certain ways of life of people I believe to know less than me, then it is also OK for me to be guided by the more educated people in my country. Some people, like my brother, don’t vote, as they argue that the elections in the UK are false, fabricated freedoms. And he is right: all we do is vote for the people who take the decisions for us – so we vote purely for the right to determine who’s in and who isn’t. But then again, maybe that’s not such a bad system, as we can’t all be politicians. Sometimes we have to be humble and accept that others know better.
David Meads, alias Scroobius Pip, is a British spoken word artist and musician. The former record seller has been writing poems since 2005 and has been working as a solo-duo with laptop musician dan le sac since 2006 as dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip. Their first single “Thou Shalt Always Kill” (2008) was signed with the Sunday Best record label. Their debut album, “Angles” (2008), reached number 31 in the UK album charts. The new album, “The Logic of Chance”, has been out since 15 March 2010 on the Sunday Best label. Musical styles range from hip-hop to electronica and pop; amongst their musical influences are Sage Francis, Chilly Gonzales, Joy Division, Kraftwerk and Mogwai. When he is not on tour, Pip works in his London home in Essex.
