In this interview spotlight, I chat with Papa Shango about the single and video for “Check Your Phone“. We also discuss motivations, musical memories and favorite artists.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
What’s something you’d like readers to know about your latest project
Our new album Risk assessment is really unlike anything you’re going to hear this year and your tolerance for juvenile silliness splattered all over great riffs will be the difference between you dancing around your living room, rocking out and having the time of your life or just turning it off and doing the Guardian crossword instead.
How does this project compare with your other release(s)? Was there anything specific you were trying to accomplish?
Character, context, and location was a big part of the discussion when going into this album and our Producer ‘Lil Sammy R’ insisted that we approach each track like its own Novella with clear structure and form. With that in mind he tried to get us to record each song on location – So for example ‘Power Cut’ was recorded in a haunted mansion in complete darkness, ‘Monsters of Rock’ was primarily taken from a desk recording of the band playing live at a festival in Germany and ‘Sexy Doctor’ was recorded in our good friend Dr. Edwards Hope’s surgery (YouTube star who also appears in Adam Kay’s Memoirs and Sunday Times best seller ‘This is going to hurt’)
What motivates you to create music?
Our lead singer and leader Papa Rob motivates the band to create music. He is the one that lets the band out of their cage every morning to stretch their legs while he changes our water bowl and bedding. Sometimes if we are good, he will give us a treat and tickle our bellies.
What’s one of your first or most powerful music memories? Did that play any role in driving you to create?
Papa Rob’s first musical memory was seeing Freddie Mercury at Live AID on the telly in his living room in 1985 when he was 5 years old. For the rest of the week, he ran around wearing a cloak and a crown with a painted-on moustache insisting that family and neighbors join him in convoluted call and response sing along until his mother eventually grounded him. He’s been doing this ever since and that’s what lead to him forming Papa Shango.
If you could collaborate with anyone – dead or alive, famous or unknown – who would it be and why? If it’s an indie/DIY artist, please include a link so readers can check them out.
Dead……We would have loved to have collaborated with 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg. The Pappettes are always talking about how he simultaneously extended the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner while personifying innovations in atonality that would became the most polemical feature of 20th-century classical music. Alive……… it would probably be Kayne West or the The Krankies.
What was the last song you listened to? And who is one of your favorite all-time bands/artists?
The last song we listened was Head on The Block by De Staat. They are one of the best bands working in Europe currently and we think should be the biggest band in the world. They have also said we can support them next time they play in the UK, and we think after that we’ll all probably become best friends and maybe go on holiday together or at least send each other Christmas cards every year.
Where is the best place to find you and stay connected?
You can find us at all the usual social media hangouts, usually in detention, scratching our bums and picking our noses waiting for home time.
I really appreciate Your time. Anything else before we sign off?
There is no substitute for sharing the live experience with Papa Shango, so If we are playing in a town near you, please come and see us and we’ll squirt you with cream and send you home happy. Our New single ‘Check Your Phone 5G’ is available to stream online right now from all of the usual streaming services.
