Photo Credit: Jude Edington

Posted date: April 2006

Mylo talks with Onbeat.com about sharing the Coachella stage with Madonna, an imposter ambush on Myspace and why he doesn’t like mash-ups.

Interview by: Dennis Sebayan

There’s a certain tinge of braggadocio in Mylo’s voice that comes across during a recent exclusive interview with Onbeat. A Glaswegian cocksure swagger, if you will. But even after selling tens of thousands of his debut album worldwide, the breakout dance music sensation still knows how to be humble. For one thing, he calls his Coachella show a ‘warm-up’ performance (he went on after Madonna in the Dance Tent). For another, he self-deprecates in a way that proves he’s not afraid to admit he’s human (“I work in sporadic fits and starts”). He’s a little weary about remiss reporting, but who can blame the guy when he’s been misrepresented more than once in the media? Here, Mylo sets the record straight.

Onbeat: How you doing, Mylo?

Mylo: I’m good, thanks. Yeah, just back at my flat in Glasgow. Where are you calling from?

Onbeat.com: New York City.

Mylo: Cool.

Onbeat: Earlier this year, there were reports of your hearing loss or damage, which prevented you from touring.

Mylo: Yeah.

Onbeat: When did the impairment escalate so that you had to do something about it?

Mylo: It was a temporary thing. Don’t get the wrong idea—I’m completely back to normal now. I think it was on Christmas Boxing day that I noticed it.  I was in Cape Town on the first week of January and that was when I realized that my ear wasn’t clearing up, so I canceled some gigs. And then my hearing returned over the next few weeks.

Onbeat: Did you have to take any measures, or was it just a matter of allowing it to run its course?

Mylo: I took some steroids, but I don’t know if they actually had any effect. It probably [sic] just ran its course.

Onbeat: With recent DJ stints, does this mean that Mylo is back in action?

Mylo: Well, the live show is on complete sabbatical right now, until I’ve got a new album ready. That’s obviously compromised my being able to really promote the album. Specifically in the US and Canada, where the release date has been held back and held back again. So we weren’t able to reschedule the tour for the US. Basically, I came and I DJ-d at Coachella, some other…[at this point, we get cut-off. We pick up minutes later, after the RCA publicist patches us through-ed.]

Onbeat: Mylo?

Mylo: Yes. Apologies.

Onbeat: That’s ok. All right so, moving on. You were at Coachella—how did that go?

Mylo: Oh, it was wicked. Yeah, it was great. I went on after Madonna in the Dance Tent. It was a good slot to have. I could have gone on before her. Which, I would have had a bigger crowd—because obviously—there was some mania about her at the festival. People were camped out there all day. So you got a few. But yeah, pretty good warm-up act to have for me, you know?

Onbeat: Yeah. Did you get to meet Madonna?

Mylo: Umm, no [he laughs]. However, I’m friends with Stuart Price from a while back. He’s one of my biggest influences in getting into music. He used to produce as Les Rhythmes Digitales. He had a couple of albums back in the late ‘90s when he was only 16-18 years old. I saw him before. Him and Madonna were coming past, in an entourage of 50-security guards. I’d never seen such over-the-top security in my life.

Onbeat: Destroy Rock and Roll has been released in the States.

Mylo: Finally.

Onbeat: Any plans for a new album?

Mylo: Yeah. I’m back in Glasgow. I moved all my studio equipment back up. I’ve been based in London for the last two years—which has been great as a base for traveling all over Europe and the world. It’s been great for all kinds of things, hanging out in London. But it’s a terrible place to live if you want to be getting-on doing stuff. I actually moved back on the same street I lived in Glasgow when I was finishing [Destroy Rock & Roll] off in 2003. I’m trying to recreate my environment.

It seems music comes from out of Skye—people tend to think I made the album in Skye. But the truth is, I made it partly in Skye, but mainly in Glasgow. Most shit I read about me says I made the album in Skye. I just moved back to the same street in order to get the vibe back.

Onbeat: Are you happy to be back home?

Mylo: Yeah, it’s great. My brother’s here as well. And the guys from the band are here, with the exception of Louis, the bass player, who’s up in the Isle of Skye organizing the Skye Festival. Which is going to be interesting, because he is one of the most degenerate persons I’ve ever met in my life. And now he’s in charge of the bands and making sure they’ve got all the right drum risers. He’s got two weeks left. We’re going to see how that works out. I’ll DJ there.

Onbeat: What is your involvement with Recall?

Mylo: They’re one of the partners for my release in France. France has been the biggest market for me, apart from the UK. We did it through V2 and Recall—in partnership. That is why I know the Recall guys and that was why I ended up in the Recall Lab party in New York [Hiro Ballroom, May 10, 2006].

Onbeat: Are you still working on your label, Breastfed?

Mylo: Yeah. There are two other partners in it, so I own a third of the label as well as being signed to it. Which is good for me in terms of control. I’m trying to sign some new stuff at the moment. Got a couple of new acts coming through with albums, as well as a few singles. Linus Loves [Breastfed co-owner] just finally finished his album and put it out. That’s the focus of the label at the moment.

[I’m] working in the studio during the week. I’m DJing quite a bit in Europe this summer. I’m supposed to have taken a year off to work on the new album, but before I knew it, you know—you accept one thing, and then you accept the other thing.  Now I’m busy until September. DJing for me is just fantastic, stress free existence after traveling with the band, an entourage of eight people. With everything always going wrong, DJing you just turn out with your records, your CDs and your way.

Onbeat: You’re booked every weekend until September?

Mylo: I do know, yeah, which is obviously going to conflict with my expressed theme of getting the album finished. But the first album, in a way, was quite a quick thing because I didn’t ever start producing until 2001. The album was finished by late 2003, but in that time a lot of it was spent learning to produce. Some of the tracks on the album were pretty much done by late 2001—six months into the whole process for me. But then, I dicked around through the entire 2002-03, until the album was finally ready. I work in sporadic fits and starts.

Photo Credit: Christopher Sims

For me, most of the weeks have been taken up with fucking Myspace. Somebody set-up a Myspace account for Mylo back in January and he got loads of friends—something like 6,000. He was sending messages back and forth as me. So I finally managed to get Myspace back.

The only reason I managed to get it back was because Myspace people were organizing a secret gig with Gnarles Barkley on the night before Coachella. And they wanted me to play some records before and after the Gnarles Barkley set. So in exchange of that, I got the password back. I finally got around to going on Myspace, trying to make it clear to everyone that whoever it was, was an imposter—but this is the real me.

But it’s just fucking incredibly difficult to control. I’ve got a lot of messages coming in, and comments. I was up until three am doing that. It’s stuff like this, which takes up most of my days when I’m supposed to be making the new record. But you know, it will come when it comes.

Onbeat: It’s like you have to work on those functions only because hey, if it comes down to a Gnarles Barkley opening set, it’s probably in your best interest.

Mylo: Yeah, it would have been good to do that. I caught a bit of the Gnarles Barkley show at Coachella—they were really cool.

Onbeat: Any remix work in the states for Destroy Rock & Roll?

Mylo: Well, I guess so. Because in a sense, the count date is over in the UK and I’m onto the next album, RCA are really looking after the singles. We’ve got masses of remixes for “Drop The Pressure,” “Destroy Rock & Roll,” “Muscle Cars” and for “In My Arms”—they were the four singles that we did in the UK that all went Top 20. Then there’s the bonus track: the bootleg with Gloria Estefan that went to the Top 5 in the UK.

Which I imagine will be a single in the US as well [it is—ed.]. That’s slightly different, because it’s not really my track. I would definitely check out the Riton mix of “Drop The Pressure.” It’s excellent. And the Sander Kleinenberg mix of “Muscle Cars”—they’re two of my favorites.

Onbeat: At the moment, have you rallied-up the band members for a new album yet?

Mylo: They live close by, but we haven’t gotten together yet. I’m 50-50 because I’m a bit of a control freak. I think the reason that I got into electronic production is that I prefer to get-on things on my own. To me, there’s nothing more depressing than a jam session which isn’t really going anywhere. Also, I’m in a temporary flat in Glasgow, where I don’t think I’d be very popular if I set-up a drum kit and stuff like that. So what I really need to do is what Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand did and get a big old stone house out in a field, on the other side of Glasgow and set everything up there, record out there. I think it’s a more sensible way of doing it.

Onbeat: Is there anything you’re buzzing on that you’re playing in your DJ sets?

Mylo: There’s a lot of stuff from France. Guys like J.U.S.T.I.C.E. and Sebastian.

Onbeat: Leger?

Mylo: I like Sebastian Leger, but there’s also a guy who records as Sebastian, who makes really fucked-up sounding stuff. Sounds a bit like J.U.S.T.I.C.E. There’s a new Kitsune compilation called Kitsuné Maison Volume 2, which—I’m embarrassed to admit—I’ve been playing about four tracks off of every time I DJ. That compilation is so good, it’s embarrassing. It’s amazing.

Onbeat: If you could go back and do things differently, is there anything you would change in the first album, or is it something you’re working on next?

Mylo: You can keep going back over things until you drive yourself crazy. Sure, I’ve got plenty of regrets in terms of everything was done in complete chaos and panic throughout the album campaign. In the UK, we ended up selling 20,000 albums, which is fantastic. I never, ever expected that. I expected to sell 5-10,000 worldwide. I think we’ve only sold about 10,000 in the US, but it’s kind of been doomed there [laughs] for the most part. One of the reasons it’s difficult to try and fight for the album now [is]I guess anybody [who] keeps their eye on the UK already knew about the album two years ago.

Yeah, a few things I regret. Even about the UK thing—which maybe I shouldn’t admit to—but giving a release to the Gloria Estefan bootleg was [pauses] understandable at the time, and it was kind of witty in the context of everyone that knew my tracks and knew “Drop The Pressure.” But I wouldn’t want to be thought of as someone who just takes ‘80s songs and puts a beat behind them, because there’s a whole industry of people doing that in the UK and to me, it’s the most creatively bankrupt, uncool thing to get involved with, really. I have my doubts about that Gloria Estefan thing.

Onbeat: It’s interesting to point out that wasn’t even you who mashed it.

Mylo: Exactly. It’s been remiss reported as being my mash-up and I think it could be to do with the way it appears on the final US version of the album. I haven’t really seen the sleeve. It was supposed to say in big letters “this mash-up was made by Phil N Dog.” I think you can find it credited to them somewhere, but it’s in extremely small print.

It’s like this Myspace thing. There’s somebody out there for five months whose been sending messages to meet people.

Onbeat: That’s creepy, isn’t it?

Mylo: Which is a little creepy. I’ve been reading back over some of them and he comes across as a real corporate cheese bag. You do certain things and you put yourself in the public eye, but there’s no point in getting so stressed out over it, where you start losing sleep. There gets a certain point where things snowball to the size where they’re going to be out of control.

Onbeat: Well it sounds like you’re active and taking everything in stride and doing what you’ve got to do.

Mylo: Yeah, I think I’ve got to do it. I feel a little sorry for the US situation, but at the same time, there’s no way that I can try and force my friends to spend 2006 or even a part touring in the US when we worked so hard on it in the UK and Europe; the rest of the world. You know, everybody’s very key—my brother on the drums, the other guys that really came to get on with their own projects. That’s why we’re not going to tour in the US and that’s why things are not really happening for us over there. But you know; dance music is a bit of a basket case scenario for us anyway. Like it or not, the scene that I’m involved in is more of a European thing. You know?

Onbeat: We’ll be around waiting for the next bout, then.

Mylo: Yeah, I guess. Hopefully things will be a little more integrated when I have the next album ready.

Onbeat: Are you still signed to RCA?

Mylo: Yeah, absolutely.

Onbeat: Congratulations, and good luck on that.

Mylo: Much appreciated.