Music > Interviews

Goldie Lookin Chain

26/04/16

GLC have been making their hilarious rap tunes and parodies since they were teenagers. Their unique brand of humour and fun is infectious and  carefree, but rooted deeply in their genuine love for hip hop. Headlining at Symmetry Festival this June, I spoke to founding member Eggsy about being famous, his favourite rappers and watching Dad’s Army on the telly. 

How did you all get together originally in Newport, Wales?

Well, a lot of us were schoolmates or we skated together, or went to the pub together. I love hip hop and wanted to write weird rhymes, Rhys wanted to make weird beats so we started off together. We got bored of going to the same pub every night so we would ask people to come round and have a go on a track we were making on a computer. Then some of the other boys would come round and were like “right, what do I have to do?” and I’d say “just say something weird into the microphone”. So it’s an organic sort of thing, we’ve just known each other for a long time, and we’ve always had an open door policy with what we do – if you turn up and have got something to put into the mix then put it in. That’s why there are so many of us, because people come and go.

I know you all do stuff outside GLC; you’ve been working on a really funny new show for BBC Radio Wales called The Unexplainers. Can you tell us a bit about it? Is it scripted?

Thanks for listening to it, that means a lot. We just finished the final episode last night. It really blurs the line between scripted and unscripted. We research a topic, find people to interview and then pretty much it’s me and Mike, a stand up comedian, vibing off what’s going on, and it’s crazy but in a good way. The production on it is fantastic. You could technically have made it in a studio and scripted it all, but it’s not – we get out there, let it happen and we have a laugh. It’s a heightened reality, like in GLC.

Back in 2002/3 you had a massive hit with Guns Don’t Kill People, and your debut album Greatest Hits did really well in the charts. Did you anticipate this success and what was the hardest thing to deal with?

It was really weird, it all happened incredibly fast. We went round the world and there was a bidding war between Atlantic and Sony for us. To get signed to a serious label like Atlantic was amazing, surreal and intense. To this day people still recognise us in the street and come up and talk to us; once you’ve had your name and face in the public eye it definitely changes your life a bit. I’m glad I don’t have to tour hard all the time now because it was the best of times but also the worst of times. It was a crazy mix of amazingness but also not sleeping and constantly having to shake hands with people. Most people were on hard drugs, which I’ve never been into, so I’d ask for a cup of tea and maybe a piece of cake and they’d be very confused.

Who are your inspirations in terms of rappers?

The first bit of vinyl I ever bought was 3 Is The Magic Number by De La Soul and then their first album. It took hip hop out of the arena of blokes just rapping –I loved all the little skits, because I loved Monty Python and kids cartoons, they were painting a picture with their sound. I loved Public Enemy, the beats were so hard and mental. I had no idea what they were singing about, but as a white kid living in South Wales learning about subjects like the Nation of Islam through hip hop is quite something. Without even realising it I was being educated. I didn’t even know what funk and soul was when I was young, I grew up with two sisters listening to Adam and the Ants and New Romantic stuff. I just thought pop music was for girls, all frills and make up, and I didn’t like it or get it. And then I heard Sex Machine by James Brown sitting in the back of my dad’s car. I remember laughing about the fact that this man had made a song about a machine that does sex! And I don’t even know what sex is! But then you’d hear the drum break on a hip hop track and you’d realise these sounds come from somewhere else. Then I discovered sampling which opened up a whole new world for me. That’s why I like hip hop - it borrows from other stuff to make something new.

How do you go about putting your songs together?

Rhys and I usually sit and plan what we’re going to work on. We’ll find a sample or a hook, or we’ll start singing something over the top of something else and if it works and has legs we’ll try to write a whole song based on it. There might be a song like Maneater by Hall and Oates, for example, and you might sing “Beefeater” over the top, and if you think you can write a whole song about the Beefeater chain of restaurants then you go for it! But sometimes it’s just one line and there’s not enough there to write a whole song off of. It just depends on how strong the idea is. We sometimes use subjects that are in the public eye because people can relate to those subjects – we just did a song called Waitrose Rap which is doing quite well. The video cost under a tenner to make!

So your new album Pill Communication has just come out. What’s it all about and have the Beastie Boys been a big inspiration to you?

Yeah the Beastie Boys are good – they’ve always managed to put out decent albums and did some amazing stuff. The reason why we called it Pill Communication is there’s a place in Newport called Pillgwenlly known locally as Pill, it’s the docks area of the city. We did a Kickstarter; we wanted to raise £50,000 and said if we got it we guaranteed we would destroy the album and never release it, ha ha! The campaign was called Stop GLC. But we only made £23… so we released the album. If we had got the £50,000 we planned to use the money to open a mobile phone shop in Pillgwenlly called Pill Communication.

Your track Who’s Next talks about various celebrities who are getting on a bit..Terry Wogan and Paul Daniels have both died since that track came out!

Yep, it’s a bit gutting! They’re all going! Lemmy started the trend off, of course, and then Bowie. You forget that they’re real people, they’re like brand names almost so you get used to having them around you, like Wogan you always expect to be on the telly, or Bowie’s always popping up with his gammy eyes. They’re probably going to be the last of the iconic entertainers because it’s all Internet now so everyone’s got their own niche thing that they’re into. My nephew’s into Minecraft videos on YouTube, and my other nephew is into skateboarders, so for them they already have their own individual icons rather than a shared experience. It’s a shame cos everyone loves to kick back and watch a bit of Dad’s Army on the telly and notice how many of them are dead, but we won’t have that for much longer I don’t think. So that song is a little homage to times that are changing as things fragment.

Do people sometimes think you’re a serious band?

When it’s one of our headlining shows or at a festival people generally get it. Sometimes you’ll see people in the audience,..it’s usually a guy who’s brought his girlfriend who he hasn’t been seeing that along with him.  He’s said “I love these guys, come with me”. And you see the woman stood next to him thinking “What the fuck is this??” But by the end of it you see them laughing with their arms in the air and they get it. Sometimes you’ve got to come to the live show to figure it out.

Goldie Lookin Chain headline the Safire Live stage at Symmetry Festival 10-12th June in Guist, North Norfolk. Info and tickets available at symmetryfestival.co.uk