25/05/11
Firstly, where’s your beard gone?In my sink, in the sewage system.
Is it in any way correlated to your mojo? Erm, yeah, I’ve actually found that since I shaved off my beard I’ve completely lost the ability to beatbox.
The skills were hidden within the folicles…Also, my social skills have completely disappeared; my manners have gone and I’m ending up walking into parties and just shouting at everyone, then bursting into tears immediately, as soon as I walk in.
It’s caused you some emotional instability...Not only emotional instability, but I’ve also found that my flesh has started to degrade and my skin’s started to just peel off. But now I can’t go back because us Beardymen are from Planet Beard and we only ever grow one beard and once it’s shaved, you can never get it back.
Is that moustaches as well? Could you give yourself a bit of a Fu Manchu?Erm, if I was to give myself a Fu Manchu moustache, the great Beard God would descend from Planet Beard and kneecap me with a machete.
Ah, I didn’t think about that.Not many people know. Well look, it’s a rumour, but it is actually true. It’s a myth, a legend like Robin Hood – but there was a Robin Hood.
Another time you didn’t have a beard – I hope – was at school. What was Beardyboy like as a young man? A precocious twat who needed a clip round the ear.
Did you get one? No, and that’s why I’m in the position I’m in today. My Dad is an oil billionaire from Saudi Arabia. We had servants and we had ways of sneaking into the servant’s quarters where we’d just do massive lines of coke then go round beating up the staff.
I imagine that that level of cocaine at that age would induce a feeling of grandeur.It did you know, I mean, I knocked the coke on the head, but I still beat up butlers. I decided to go by a hotel and set on the guys in the penguin suits. You’ve got to make your own fun, don’t you?
At least you’ve reined it in a little bit. Yeah, temperance is important. Everything in moderation.
I have a friend, Subminor, who takes dem yoot and teaches them beatboxing in order to stop them fleecing old ladies – would you have done a class when you were a nipper? Mmm, yeah. Maybe that would have got me off beating up butlers. I mean I only discovered beatboxing when I was 17. It came to me in a dream, well Doug E. Fresh appeared to me in a dream, pulled my trousers down and ran away, and I didn’t know what the meaning was but then I saw an advert for Beatbox School in Ontario, so I went there for five years and I was rubbish. I couldn’t beatbox at all until I went travelling and took some mescaline when I was 22. I took mescaline and then the Great Lizard Beast appeared before me; it was kind of a lizard with a million shiny eyes floating around its head. Each of the eyes kind of lasered into my brain the ability to beatbox and the rest is history.
Wow, I guess the mescaline gave you a bit more dexterity in the lips too?Yeah, I mean all the mouth exercises that they’d given me lay dormant, but I didn’t have that magical something that I got from psychotropic drugs.
You have now surpassed the skills and talent of people you must have once looked up to – people like Rahzel – so who or what inspires you now?Erm, air travel. Air travel to me just seems massively unlikely to exist. Every time I get on a plane I’m convinced it’s not going to take off, then once it’s in the air I find it very hard to believe we’re travelling at 400mph in a metal tube at 35,000 ft above the planet because we’re monkeys. We’re monkeys who have somehow made computers and air travel. Computers and air travel I think, they inspire me to be better, ‘cause I think that shows that if we can do that, we can do anything.
Being a one-man band with endless musical capabilities, are you never scared that your ass is coveted property… you could be taken hostage and prostituted out to studios by an evil mogul like Simon Cowell…[Beardyman falls into coughing fit] I just tried to inhale granola. [Between coughs] I now know that that’s not possible. Breathe gases, never try to breathe breakfast cereal.
I imagine that’s like a tornado of wheat in your throat.Ha! Exactly. Like a dustbowl. No, actually I was approached by Simon Cowell who wanted me to do all the music for X Factor but I told him that I’d rather maim disabled children with large blocks of Nazi gold… erm, so he killed himself and the children did rejoice and there was much celebration.
As well as coming to Norwich, you’re playing at BLOC in March – is there any chance of collaboration with any of the artists there… Aphex Twin maybe? Do you know what, I never want to meet Aphex Twin because he’s a hero of mine, like a massive hero of mine. I’ve got this terrible suspicion that I’d meet him and he’d be a bit stand-offish or a bit bored, or eager to go and play with his kids or like, hang out with his missus and he wouldn’t be interested in talking to me. I’d go and say something stupid like “I love you, you’re amazing. Can I touch your face or cock?!” Then I’d be like, “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I’m gonna go now,” then I’d just go and cry and wish it had never happened. They say you should never meet your heroes and it’s for two reasons: firstly, they might be a dickhead and secondly, you might be a dickhead and had never realised it until the moment you met your hero. I’m terrible at meeting them; generally they’re really nice and I just fuck up and say something stupid like “I hated your second album… Oh fuck.” I’d love to meet Aphex Twin obviously, but what would I say to him other than “I think you’re amazing”.
I also saw your name on the Coachella line-up. That’s very exciting for America. What’s your relationship with the good ol’ US of A like?Yes, it’s very exciting for America. America should be very thankful they’ve got me, you know, there are a lot of countries in the world and America’s just a small one. It’s just one of the many countries I grace with my presence. They should count themselves lucky, bloody Americans with their war and their Mickey Mouse. Do you know they actually sent Mickey Mouse into Iraq?
Nooooooh, he’s got too delicate a sensibility for Iraq…You’d think so – he’s a savage killer.
Really? Yeah.
Shit.Pahahaha, sorry, that’s a really funny response, “shit.” You sounded genuinely perturbed.
I am – I’ve still got his video.His video? You’ve got the secret sex tape?
Yes. Mickey does Pluto; he’s into rampant bestiality.Well it’s always bestiality, him and Minnie – they’re both mice, or is it only bestiality when it’s inter-animal?
I think only when you cross the animal pond.Some radical Christians will be like “All animals must be killed and gays invented bestiality.”
Well all being said, America is wet in the knickers that you’re on the line-up.Yeah, America’s knickers span the whole of Texas and at the moment… I can’t say what I was about to say, hahaha, let’s move on.
You seem to have an innate understanding of how music genres and tracks are put together… is this through study or intuition? I’ve never studied modern music genres as a subject; I did Music GCSE, I learnt piano; I did grades and theory and so on and stuff like that and I’ve played in orchestras, but I’ve always, always been fascinated by music. My brother’s ridiculously talented – his name’s Jay Foreman and he does stand up musical comedy - and when we were growing up we’d always be making stupid tapes and writing silly songs. I find music genres quite funny because they’re useful. They all exist for a reason and they’re like different personalities. Sometimes people mistake a genre for a feeling, but really it’s all just a massive Venn diagram of the reasons why sounds are together and why different types of people want to hang out together. You get the tear-out with every genre though; as soon as the tear-out becomes the norm, the girls leave and you’re just left with a club full of sweaty boys. The girls fuck off and you’re left with nothing but the fuckheads in rooms full of beats and ridiculous breakdowns and build-ups. The girls go somewhere where there’s a bit more soul. The break up of music genres is all down to that hardcore element where blokes take their tops of and release endorphins, in heavy metal, in dub, in any genre. It’s just testosterone.
It happened with garage too – it was sexy for a while – - And then the dickheads took over. Norman Jay told me this. Get the girls dancing and the boys will follow. Girls dance to melodies, not to beats. Girls will dance round the room to one person singing alone, waving their hands in the air. Guys need something a bit more gutteral.
How excited are you about coming to Norwich?I’m more excited about coming to Norwich than I was about my first child being born.
Emma Roberts
Beardyman will pour sounds out of his mouth and musical boxes as he hits the Waterfront on February 18th. For tickets, go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.