Run Hide Survive

Things are happening for Run Hide Survive. The Sheffield production duo have probably been best known until recently, in their home city at least, for the DJing exploits of the shaven-headed Mike, and his excellent night, Club Pony. Now, however, their first single release, alongside a slew of recent remixes and production work, is starting to make people sit up and take notice.

After finding our planned interview venue closed, we settle in a random nearby pub who's shabby Christmas decorations flash behind Run Hide Survive's heads, casting a quaint retro electronic glow over proceedings. During the interview both speak passionately and extensively about their love of music, and their excitement at the opportunity to make a living from it. For the most part bright-eyed Mike talks effusively, whilst the more withdrawn Luke makes occasional but significant interjections.

We began by talking about their debut single. Mike had mentioned on the walk between interview venues that they'd recently discovered, to their disappointment, that the record label hadn't kept it's promises with regards to its distribution. The disappointment emerges again during the discussion.

Mike: 'From June to August last year we did the two tracks that have become the first single, which is 'Dyson/Pigeon.'

Luke: 'They were probably the second and third tracks we ever actually finished.'

Mike: 'Then we just sat there, and didn't really do anything. And because we didn't do anything it was pure chance that somebody went, "Hey, these are alright" and we had a couple of offers from labels to put it out.'

Luke: 'Some of those were a bit sixties-style exploitation, expecting you to sign over your recording rights for your entire career.'

Mike: 'There was one particular label who had some quite big acts at the time, and it was just scary the amount that they wanted. Finally we found a label, well a start up involving a couple of guys who had worked at Wall of Sound, who were like, "Well we'll put it out, as a one-off, for this new label that we're working on. We're going to get Wallpaper magazine to curate the artwork." And that came out eventually on 29th September this year. Where it's found its way to the shops, it's sold really well.'

Luke: 'It's done quite well on digital as well.'

Mike: 'Where people saw it out on digital they've actually bought it, and it was in the Trackitdown top 10 until last week, ever since it's release. It's just a shame it never ended up on Beatport and went down on Juno after one day. But it's sold out in Phonica in London and there's only two copies left in Rough Trade, so it's done well.'

'Creative Review got really on it because of the artwork. The artwork's amazing. I'm pretty sure the people who bought it in Phonica and stuff bought it for the sleeve, which apparently is worth more than the actual record.'

Luke: 'Who told you that?'

Mike: 'The guy who did the artwork.'

I tell them this reminds me of the infamous story about the New Order's 'Blue Monday' single, where the die-cut sleeve was so expensive to produce that Factory Records lost money on every copy sold. My suggestion that this could imply they are the new New Order is one they're amused by, but shrug off quickly.

Mike: (laughs) 'Yeah. It's nice, it's a hand screenprinted sleeve from this guy Wallpaper commissioned to do it. It's great. I've got a copy at home. I guess the only way physical music is going to survive is by making it attractive, so in that sense it's really good. It's just a shame they only got it on one digital download site. It's not that we're all about money, it's just that obviously when you get a single out, you're quite keen for people to hear it.'

One Run Hide Survive track that many people have been hearing of late, is their remix of the Kaiser Chiefs track 'Never Miss A Beat', which was snapped up by the Kaisers and has consequently been getting Mike and Luke exposure across the world. I ask them about their experience with this.

Mike: 'We're quite lucky in the sense that, although we get some love off the blogs, we've not got that kind of buzzy underground-y vibe about us, which means there's not much to lose by doing stuff like the Kaiser Chiefs remix, but we feel there's everything to gain. Cos we've got confidence now that we can go in and just produce these crazy tunes, that probably no-one will buy, but they'll be exciting for the people who want to be excited by them, but also just for ourselves. And I'm perfectly happy that's got our name on it. And the thing is it's getting played all over the US indie radio, and it actually went on one of the versions of the album in the states.'

Me: 'Presumably you don't get anything back from that?'

Luke: 'We tried that.'

Mike: I guess as we get bigger...(trails off). We definitely want to be able to get to the stage where we can do remixing work with more artists in future. I mean, The Kaiser Chiefs do what they do extremely well.'

Luke: 'It was a good song for remixing as well.'

Mike: 'What was really interesting have that was that we got the full 75 track Pro-Tools session from the original recording. Rather than just having your bass, drums and all that sort of stuff, we got the whole deal, which was just really enlightening. To load that session up and go, right, well this is how they did this, this and this is just a goldmine.'

Luke: 'Especially as Mr Ronson did it. It was kind of like, 30-odd drum tracks, 5 bass tracks, about 30 tracks of vocals. And individually you don't really get it but when you hear it all together it just sounds absolutely huge. That was interesting.'

Me: 'So you're Sheffield's next low-budget Mark Ronson.'

Mike: 'Absolutely, put that in. Poor man's Ronson. No, I think, the idea of doing music, of doing music and being able to sustain yourself on any level is what excites us at the moment.'

'One of the things we've been doing is production stuff with artists as well, which is how we got the remix, because one of the artists was being managed by the Kaisers' label, they heard our demos and got really excited.'

Me: 'How does the production stuff come about.'

Mike: 'It was just a friend of ours.'

Luke: 'As much as we're into Sheffield electronic music we're well into Trevor Horn and Martin Rushent, people who were actually behind the music, and we always wanted to have a crack at producing modern pop music. This guy Lemond fits really well into that category, he's kinda like Kanye West meets Prefab Sprout, really really different. We're gonna be working with Darlings of the Splitscreen as well.'

Mike: 'It's quite exciting at the moment, cos I think we've come on so much, just technically, and in terms of the terms of reference and ideas that we're bringing to it. It's just all happened really well. With the Kaisers thing it's given us a bit of financial stability in the background which has also meant that we can now say, right, we're not going to work any more, we've got a couple of months where we can sit down and write.'

Luke: 'Which is the first chance we've had in a very long time. With all the remixes and production we've not actually had time to write our own stuff. This December's the first time we've had the chance to do it, which is quite exciting.'

I decide to explore their interest in production further, by asking them who they think is an amazing producer.

Luke: 'From the pop side at least, we're both big fans of Calvin Harris.'

Mike: 'I'm a big fan of Paul Epworth. He's very much of the kind of music establishment. One of his first major jobs was he was an assistant at Abbey Road, recording strings for George Martin, but then he got into doing the remixing and stuff. And he's good in the sense that, because he wasn't from an underground dance background, he wasn't pigeon-holed and he just used to mess around with his remixes. Every one would be completely different. His production has been a bit of a benchmark sonically. The stuff he did even early on with bands like Bloc Party and things - the tracks, they're just straight up "indie" tracks, and they play very well on radio, but you hear them on a club soundsystem and they've got that kick and they've got that punch. He appreciates that things can be visceral. Obviously we're big fans of SebastiAn and Jackson. I like that visceral thing, and the edge that you can still have, even in pop music. I think Calvin Harris, although it's a bit twee, still has that edge to it. So yeah, Paul Epworth, and I get really excited by, although I hate to say it and it probably comes across as a bit weird, the Kate Nash album. Particularly that 'Foundations' track.'

Luke: 'You hear that and you think it's just a throwaway pop song, but once you listen to the touches within it it's just huge. You hear it out on a big system and it just sounds amazing, absolutely massive. And half the references he has for that kind of stuff is not like real pop stuff. He reckons it sounds like Suicide, which when you delve a bit further into the techniques he uses, it does. We definitely like that idea of being kind of mainstream and referencing really obscure stuff'

Mike: 'Also, I think a trick about pop music which a lot of people don't appreciate is just how difficult it is to get your track to sound as good on a 3-inch speaker in a car, and make it sound like you can hear this crazy bass and all these amazing synth things and the shimmering vocal, then it'll sound as good on a massive club soundsystem.'

It's a trick that Run Hide Survive have clearly loved getting to grips with. Whether crafting their own 'visceral party jams' (as they call them) or working behind the scenes to create hits for other artists, you should be hearing much more of their music in the not too distant future. Open your ears and listen out for it.

Interview by Tom Schrieber
Photography by Mark Tighe

www.myspace.com/runhidesurvive