Viva los Vegas

Death in Vegas aren’t so much a group as a loose collective that revolves around the nucleus of electro boffins Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes – who are also musicians, songwriters, composers, DJs, producers, remixers, film-makers, graphic artists, sculptors and painters. Their self styled HQ the Contino Rooms is something of a 21st century North London version of Andy Warhol’s factory – a building bursting with ideas and creativity and a focal point to collaborate with a host of contemporary legends.

For The Contino Sessions in 1999, which was unquestionably one of the last great albums of the ’90s, DiV enlisted Dot Alison, Bobby Gillespie, Iggy Pop and Jim Reid. The brand new opus entitled Scorpio Rising features Susan Dillane of Woodbine, Hope Sandoval, Liam Gallagher, Paul Weller and India’s leading violinist and composer Dr. Subranamian. “Originally, the album was just going to be done with female vocalists on a series of female driven love songs, at least that was the plan,” explains Richard Fearless. “We obviously totally veered off that.”

“I’m really proud of it,” adds Tim Holmes. “Especially considering how difficult it was to make. The creative bit came quite naturally but the organisation behind it was doing our heads in because we were working with people who lived in San Francisco and India. It was logistically a difficult album. There is nothing like a deadline to make you finish something that’s for sure!”

What were the special moments this time round? “Liam was brilliant,” Richard immediately answers. “He was absolutely hysterical. Really funny. I kind of knew he would be like that through people who know him like Bobby. There is no doubt that he is the loudest man in rock. On the other hand, Hope was a very shy person so that was really different. Everyone had something different to add but at the end of the day the most inspiring person to work with was the Doctor (Subranamian) because he brought a lot more to it than just the string arrangements.”

“When the Doctor came in he started opening his violin cases and they all had these pictures of these deities,” Richard explains. “He’d bless them all and then bless himself and bless the violin. When you see someone putting this into your music and doing so much beyond their call of duty, it makes you readdress what you are putting into it and it makes you dig a lot deeper into yourself. That is something that is not always easy to do with two guys working together. Everybody always has barriers and in music, you need honesty and you need to drop those barriers and that is not always easy to do. I think we really show for it on the record. Since we’ve finished the album, we’ve been mainly writing electronic stuff and it’s just getting better and better. It’s a good thing to never think you’ve done your best work because it gives you a good drive. I’m proud of this record but it’s not perfect.”

In addition to the conventional CD and vinyl audio release of Scorpio Rising a DVD version of the album will be released next year with a short film to accompany every track. “It’s a really exciting ongoing project,” Richard enthuses. “Also we don’t have to censor it or tailor make it for broadcast. A lot of people won’t show ‘Hands Around My Throat’, which is funny because it just got the video of the month in a filmmaker’s trade magazine.” Directors lined up for the audio visual extravaganza include Wiz who directed the classic Flowered Up video ‘Weekender’ and none other than the legendary Dennis Hopper of Easy Rider fame.

Have the duo ever been told by their record company to tone down their content or make their projects sound or look more commercial? “Oh yeah,” Richard deadpans “We’ve had that for over nine years but we just stick to our guns.”

“What is really annoying is that they’ll say, ‘You can’t do that!’ and then we go and do it and then they go, ‘Oh wasn’t that a great idea!’,” Tim says. “When we worked with Iggy Pop, they only found out a few days before they had to pay for the airfare. We never go through those loops and we always go straight to the artist. Our manager is more like a third member so a lot of it is down to him and the fact that he has faith in our ideas. Once you get record companies involved you are getting your people to meet their people and it all gets pear-shaped. For us it’s about just a bunch of music fans getting together and doing
something.”