Papa La Bas

It's a sunny Friday afternoon in Notts. I've just been watching Dwyz and Suzi Ruthless of Papa La Bas rolling around on a rug throwing cereal at each other and answering a phone to nowhere. Now it's time for a beverage and a chat!

Sandman: You're both very prolific artists in your own rights. Can you tell us a bit about what you've been up to prior to Papa La Bas. What brought you to this point?

Suzi Ruthless: We kind of met by accident through Dealmaker a couple of years ago. I was asked to do some work on this track for something they we're putting together. It was just an experiment , but it worked! Then we had a six month period between that and when we started working together. So it was a big chunk of time between that and when we started to think about what it was we'd actually done and why we were doing it. And then it took another two years to actually get off our arses.

Dwyz: Yeah it was a bit of a slow burner to begin with. But we had something unique so we decided to do it, to commit to it.

Sandman: And you've both been involved in projects prior to that as well?

Suzi Ruthless: Oh, yeah. We're from completely different musical backgrounds. There's a bit of a cross over, I've done electronic music in the past. And I've got a big interest in it. But the stuff that I do with my other band and that I record is acoustic. Kind of country, gothic folk music. We couldn't be further away really.

Dwyz: Same for me as well, I was doing Hip Hop and RnB but this is Electronica, British Electronica. I've got rid of all my American influence through doing it. So for both of us it's brand new, a brand new genre.

Suzi Ruthless: And that's the whole point, we just wanted to work on something that wasn't any kind of genre. We're just creating as we go along. But people are inevitably going to try and categorize it. But as far as we're concerned the more unrecognisable the better.

Dwyz: Yeah I've made a name for it! Triponica! A cross between Hip Hop and Electronica!...That's what we do!

Sandman: You get compared to Portishead quite a bit, which is quite an easy and obvious connection to make. How do you feel about that?

Suzi Ruthless: I get more frustrated about that than Dywz does.

Dwyz: Well I'm a bit more pragmatic. I'd agree that our single does sound a bit like Portishead. If I was reviewing I'd probably say the same thing. But the album doesn't.

Suzi Ruthless: It's moved on from that a lot! The two tracks on the single, especially come round, were kind of a happy accident. We didn't approach them with any conscious plan about what we were going to do. So I think that Trip Hop thing did kind of naturally come out of that. Since then we've moved into something a lot more conscious with a lot more control.

Dwyz: We're a new band, no ones heard the album yet. Only those two original ones. Which I do agree, they sound like the Bristol scene. But the whole album is completely different now. People will get to hear that soon.

Sandman: Your Biography reads very unusually. It's a fictional piece of writing. Is that something that feeds into your music?

Suzi Ruthless: Yeah, we've totally got this concept of finding something that's a little bit of voodoo, League of Gentlemen, Mighty Boosh, English comedy thing that some of the imagery lends itself to. It's kind of English voodoo as a way of summing the biography up. And our music has a narrative. The album is a whole, not a series of singles. So ultimately the album is a whole story.

Dwyz: Yeah, there's been quite a bit of backlash against that biog. There's a few reviews where they've completely slagged us off because of our biog. But it's interesting to have that kind of conflict going on.

Sandman: You've got a very layered, eclectic and contrasting sound. Where do you draw your influences from and how do you bring them together?

Dwyz : To be honest I don't really think about it too much. I think I've got to the point where I'm so experienced in what I do that I do it from the soul. Give it to Suzi, she sings on it. That's it, honestly! But I did say to Suzi I've been waiting to meet someone like you pretty much all my professional life. She's a bit like a muse to me. I feel free to just express myself naturally as it comes without thinking about it too much, knowing that she'll be able to do something with it. It's just a moment in time.

Suzi Ruthless: He doesn't know the answer, that's what it is.

Dwyz: No it's not that...If you'd asked me a question about Non-thespian I'd be able to give you a critical break down of every single thing I do. But with this it's a very organic process to get there, you know. It's very new to me, I just go with the flow.

Sandman: What else are you guys involved in? should we be looking out for you in other places?

Suzi Ruthless: Yeah, I've got another band called Garrison. Which is a like a Gothic Country band. Nottingham based band, big one, there's six/seven of us. And were doing some individual projects with people down the line. Really quite varied stuff. Gothic to Electronica, I'm doing a project with a guy called Kevin Andrews which is really light hearted and poppie. There's a range of things I'm working on at the moment. Dwyz's just finished the Non-thespian album, and the Tuscan Coalition album that you're working on. You're getting good reviews.

Dwyz: Yeah, yeah. That's it! Do you want to ask Suzi anything else!

Sandman: Are there any gigs coming up, anything you want to let us in on?

Dwyz : Yeah, we've got a gig on the 14th August at The Golden Fleece. We're playing the 15th August at the Trent FM Future Festival. The 8th September at The Social. The 5th October at the Broadway Cinema. The 16 October at Muse Bar, and on the 6th December it's the Anechoic LP Launch Party at the Hand And Heart. All these venues are in Notts. Our AA Single , I'll Come Round / Middle Lane is out now, which you can buy from Play.com or iTunes. Our album's out in November, preceded by another Single. So, plenty to look out for!

Thanks to Papa La bas for chatting with Sandman. You can read their controversial biography for your self at:

www.myspace.com/papalabasuk

Words by Sophie Parker
Photography by Toby Price