Danny Hargreaves: What were the beginnings of Spincycle?

Hungry Dave: Andy & I met in about 1993 in Lancaster. We were both really into dance music, so we started messing about together on his amiga. The first tune we wrote was called "Midnight Growler ", it was pretty damn awful, but we both thought it was great! I think I've still got it knocking about on a tape somewhere! Eventually, I went off to Leeds to do a degree in music technology, and Andy shacked up with his missus in Milton keynes, so we didn't see each other for a few years. I dropped out of college, to concentrate on music, by this time I had a fair studio myself (amassed from student loans and student overdraft - which left me pretty poor, hence the name 'Hungry Dave'). Andy came over to Leeds for a visit in '98 and we started writing tunes together again. He lived in derby at the time, and he'd come over for weekends and we'd just get lost in the studio the whole time. The first tunes we did during that period was "Times Out" and "Sponge Monkey", which quickly got snapped up by Clive Henry at Low pressings. We were pretty damn chuffed, I mean - remember we'd been making music for at least 6 yrs now without releasing a single thing! As is always the way, once you've released one tune, the whole industry opens up to you, and you've got contacts coming out of your ears! Our Low Pressings release was swiftly followed by another; "due process / evil c", at which point labels' started asking us to do remixes for them. Initially southern comforters - 'Another late Thursday' on automatic, which did really well and was Sasha's No1 for a few weeks! That was followed by JSJ's "Ghost of you" on Renaissance and Luke Slaters "nothing at all" on Novamute. At some point during all of this, Andy decided to move up to Leeds so we could really start concentrating on Spincycle.

DH: How would you characterise your sound?

HD: Our sound is a mish-mash of deep house and Detroit techno (or so we're told). Its certainly true that they're our main influences from dance music, but we're also both really into Plaid, Boards Of Canada and some of the other Warp stuff. Andy really likes some of the more 'mental' Aphex stuff and Squarepusher, but it's not really for me. I can admire its cleverness, but it doesn't really touch my soul. Talking about soul, I have a major passion for funk and soul. I learnt to play piano just playing along to Stevie wonder tunes, which is quite a good way to learn really because you're constantly comparing yourself to one of the greatest ever keyboardists! My main soul/funk influences are: Stevie wonder, Eddie Bo (largely unknown New Orleans artist, who was making funk at the same time as James brown, but just not getting the same distribution or recognition), Al Green, Otis Reading and Aretha Franklin. And like any true soul fan, I've obviously got thousands of random b-side northern soul classics etc. that it's not worth mentioning; coz no one would know them unless they share the same passion. Essentially, we're both really open minded, and always dig quality new sounds whatever genre they're coming from. Currently I'm drifting into R&B, diggin' stuff like: Amp Fiddler, Davina, Jill Scott, and Andy's getting well into Radiohead and more experimental based indie music.

DH: Tell us about your recent Russia mini-tour, and how it went day by day?

HD: Thursday - Propaganda - Moscow
After a quick change at Frankfurt, we arrived in Moscow at about 7:00 Russian time. Hopped in the car (the driver pointed at it, and bellowed "Russian car", with many laughs") and straight off to the hotel to get pissed before going out. Propaganda is a restaurant until 12:00 when they clear the tables off the dancefloor. So we had dinner there first, which was excellent. Boris (the promoter) explained that it had been a restaurant during the soviet time as well, and he used to go there to eat. Now he's the promoter of the place! Propaganda is a fully wicked club; we played from 12 - 3 and totally rocked it! The crowd go absolutely mad, I guess the scene is still reasonably new, and they haven't had time to get cynical about it all... Alison marks - also resident there actually pointed out some people screaming (not shouting - screaming!) to me, which was unnerving (now we know how the Beatles felt - lol). Anyway, brilliant night, totally recommended, wicked sound system, wicked vibe and wicked people.

Friday - Pyramida - Kazan
After not much sleep, but a few more beers and games of billiards in the hotel, we're off on an internal flight to Kazan i.e. the middle of nowhere. We get met at the airport by our translator: Feera, who is an absolute stunner, I'm getting on very well with Feera, until she starts talking about her husband who happens to be the promoter of Pyramida - the night we're about to play. Oh well, I tell ya though, there's definitely something about these Russian girls...Pyramida, was definitely the strangest of the three, half way through our set, a strip show started up on stage, which was entertaining but unusual. We couldn't help getting the feeling that the crowd would have been happier if we'd started playing Britney, or maybe some cheesy trance. After the gig, we went off to some backstage room with Rostam (the promoter) and Feera (his wife). Although the gig wasn't so good, we did have a really wicked time with those two, who got us very drunk, and taught us some tartar songs. In return we sang 'ooh ah Cantona' & 'suspicious minds' by Elvis (quality selections boys-DH)!!!

Saturday - Fantasy Club - Krasnodar
Bloody long flight to Krasnodar! It's quite far south in Russia, so it takes a while to get there. The up side of this is that it's really warm. From what we saw of the city, which wasn't much (the drive from the airport to the club), it looks really beautiful. Wide streets with trees everywhere, and grass verges between the roads. Krasnodar is strangely reminiscent of California actually; they've even got the trams, ala San Francisco. Fantazy club is massive, 4 rooms with at least 800 people in each. Coz our plane was late, we literally got dragged through the club, up some steps to a stage and were swiftly introduced to a set of decks and instructed to play! A Russian voice announced us to 800 people screaming their heads off! I'm thinking 'hey, this looks pretty good' - It was! What an amazing night, Aphrodite (the drum 'n bass DJ) was playing after us, but the crowd seemed to have wide tastes, coz we went down a storm. I didn't see that much of Aphrodite's set, but I'm tempted to think the crowd was more into the house and techno we were playing...? After 2 hours rocking the main room, we were dragged off to what I think was the v.i.p room? Not sure what room it was, but whatever, it had a really good atmosphere. Bit more chilled, and opportunity to play some slightly deeper stuff, which went down really well. The promoters again were really sound, and treated us well. I think we must sell a lot of records in Russia, or be known for some reason coz we were signing autographs and doing photos all night!

So that was about it, back to Moscow to hang around with Boris and Alison at there house/studio whilst waiting for our plane. With a bit of time to kill, Boris suggests we nip off to red square, the Kremlin and see some other sights, which was cool, coz so far we'd only seen airports, nightclubs and hotel rooms. Then it was one last meal at propaganda and off to the airport on our way home!

'Revolutions in house vol 2' by Spincycle is out now on Automatic