The Band Explains: Organised Scum - 'Green Deal'
Organised Scum have released their new single ‘Green Deal’, with provides us with a taster of their EP due out in November. Tom Duggins from the band took a moment to talk to us about the climate crisis themed song.
Your track ‘Green Deal’ is out now, what is the inspiration behind the song?
The song is a pretty direct response to the climate crisis and where we are currently. The song's meant to be hopeful. I was handed a flyer by Extinction Rebellion about 18 months ago, on a train from London to Birmingham, and the second I saw that skull design and the words 'Rebel for Life', I had this sudden surge of excitement and optimism. This moment of recognition that we'd reached a tipping point.
So, there's that sense of hope to the song, that that the worst, most destructive parts of consumer capitalism might get reformed, rapidly. But there's also meant to be a bit of skepticism worked into it as well, because we need major reform to our social and economic structures, but we may just get the same exploitative form of capitalism, only geared towards green investment and more sustainable industries.
Where was the track recorded? Are there any behind the scenes stories you are happy to share with us?
The song was recorded up in the mighty Blank Studios of Ouseburn, Newcastle. Some call it the premiere recording facility of the North East, and I certainly wouldn't care to disagree. Our mates Luke Elgie and John Martindale, oversaw the sessions. John has engineered all our stuff with Kaleidoscope to date.
I read Julian Cope's autobiographies recently, and was impressed by the bit where he said he felt he had to record his vocals whilst completely naked in order to give a sense of vulnerability to his vocals. I was keen to give it a try, but we agreed that the sight of my naked body would be so horrifying that it could give John an aneurysm. Which would have been bad news for the project and also a fairly major bummer for his partner and children. We're currently negotiating whether I could bring a silk kimono to the studio next time, but talks have stalled.
It's always really fun going up to Blank, because so many great musicians from the area come in and out of the studio for various reasons. One of the co-owners Sam, is in the band Pigs (x7), and it seems like every time we visit they have even more Orange stacks lining the corridor.
What do you hope your listeners take from the song?
I hope they enjoy listening to it and I hope they enjoy some of the textures we've put into it. We tend to write material quite quickly, and the recording process is very frantic because we can only afford so much time in the studio. By the time the mixing process is over I'm normally sick to death of hearing it all, but I feel really proud of this song and the rest of the EP. I just hope other people agree that it's good.
Now the track is out there, what next? What are your plans for the next few months?
The EP it's taken from 'one less bastard' is coming next in November. We've had a bit of a personnel change as well, with our new bass player Mehdy coming on board a few months ago, so we're enjoying jamming together and working on new stuff. The next batch of songs are coming together already.
We've started a bi-monthly night at SET in Dalston as well which is really exciting. The next one is on 13th November. We're getting a Brighton-based band called The Private Sector to come play. They make deep fake videos of politicians to go with their music and it should be an amazing show.