Words by Hannah Lanfear
Photography by Dan Wilton
It’s a dull, gray Saturday and ‘SUP is interviewing Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (a.k.a. TEED; a.k.a. one Orlando Dinosaur) from the passenger seat of a battered car at the Hackney Wick Flea Market, East London. We are both dressed as dinosaurs: TEED for the photographer, ‘SUP just because we could.
The toast of the UK electro scene, TEED’s awesome live shows see him accompanied by two dinosaur dancers and he’s caught the eye of Greco Roman – releasing an EP with them, and well on his way to releasing another. While sitting in the car, he chats drugs old and new, Oxford, synths and Tina Turner.
How do you prefer to describe your music?
Well if I have to… (pauses) Basically, in terms of tempo is the easiest way now. It goes from 124bpm to 140bpm. It crosses lots of genres and subgenres of dance music, and I don’t really know or care about all these genres, I think they’re a bit useless and unnecessary. It’s just dance music. I guess my influences would be jungle, garage and ’80s pop.
Do you feel like part of a particular movement in popular music?
I really don’t want to be part of any particular movement, ‘cause movements are so short-lived. Like, two years ago, for six months, bassline was a bit of dance music, there was loads of bassline on Radio 1, and now it’s not cool at all any more, even though the music’s still really fucking good, but for whatever reason the press decided to go off it. In fact what I’m trying to do is not be a part of any movement. Thing is, not being from London means you don’t care about these things and you don’t associate with trends or things like that that everyone in London obsesses about, but it doesn’t matter to me.
How old were you when you first got into music, and what was your first instrument?
My first instrument was the piano, when I was seven. I first got into music because my dad showed me how to use the Philips CD player when I was maybe three or four and I would sit and put on CDs. I would put on The Planets, by Holst, something really dramatic and I would sit and daydream. That’s my first memory of music.
Did you really want to play the piano or was it something your parents wanted you to do?
Yeah, I did, up until the age of 13 and then I started thinking about drum and bass and drugs and girls and it kind of fell off.
And you started messing around with computers?
Yeah. I got into this really rubbish piece of software for notating classical music that you could somehow program drums on it, so when I was about 12 I’d make all this, like, acid jungle jazz on the computers at school. I was obsessed with drums; drum loops that didn’t stay the same, which I’m not interested in now at all, but back then I thought it was ridiculous that any drum loop would stay the same.
Is TEED just you or do you get your friends involved?
I have worked with people, and certainly I have friends who listen to the music and help in that way but it’s basically me.
What equipment are you using in your set up?
Obviously a computer at the heart of it all. I spend lots of time recording really crap instruments and pissing around with broken hardware, recording that and then re-sampling it. That’s usually just the beginning of a tune. By the time it’s finished all that stuff isn’t even in there any more, but I like playing around with that stuff just for fun or for inspiration and then try turn that into a decent piece of music.
Do you eBay lots of vintage kit?
Yeah, I sometimes get a bit Casio mad. They’re not even that good. Crap, actually. If I had loads of money I’d buy loads of big synths, but I don’t.
What, analogue ’70s sorts?
Not the really amazing special ones ‘cause everyone uses those sounds, I quite like the broken cheap ones ‘cause you don’t know what it’s gonna sound like, right? It might just be a fault; then you get all these mental sounds from it.
If you had a Daft Punk-type budget, what would you do with your live show?
I’ve got lots of little things I’d like but I’m going to keep them to myself ‘cause I don’t want people stealing them, but yeah, there’d be eggs involved. You know what? I think it’s difficult sometimes getting the balance right between doing something visually exciting, but not so visually exciting that you’re staring at the stage and not getting down, so I think simplicity is important in a massive stage show, and then you have moments when you go all out and it’s just fucking ridiculous. I have some amazing dancers. It’s a really nice thing to give to the audience. I’d love to build the show and build the show until there’re more dinosaurs onstage for whatever reason. Mostly I want loads of smoke.
Why is your track “Bournemouth” named so?
Because I just really love the beach there. I really love the 2p machine arcade place there on the beach. I could spend the whole day there. I just think it’s a funny place as well, I mean, what actually goes on in Bournemouth? This country revolves around London, sadly in my view. I thought Bournemouth needed bigging up for being a fairly standard place with loads of 2p machines.
The outside world imagines Oxford to be very gentrified. You have a banging sound for such a city. Do you feel part of the Oxford music scene?
Yeah, the Oxford music scene is great. I kind of grew up with quite a few bands that are now doing nicely. There’s a nice community about it. If you live in Oxford, you know most of the musicians, right, and there’s no kind of backstabbing or bitching or anything like that and we’ll catch up occasionally on what we’ve been doing and hang out. And there’s great dance music in Oxford, really cool nights.
Are there any records or artists that have particularly inspired you?
Well I’ve spent a lot of time listening to late ’70s and early ’80s boogie and disco, stuff like that, for the production but also the kind of attitude it has. You don’t really get that glamor within music now. It was really sparkly and camp, but also really bad boy at the same time. You don’t get some guy covered in sweat on the front of their record singing about girls anymore. The nearest thing is someone saying I want to make love in a club, and that’s shit. I listen to lots of jungle. I try to avoid any current dance music, though I really like James Blake, I think he’s going to be amazing, he’s the brightest star. He’s like 19 or something. People say he writes dubstep, but it’s just dubstep tempo stuff that’s really amazing. He has an incredible soul voice so he does really beautiful vocals with these intricate, heavy, squelchy tunes. It’s not like normal dubstep – it just hasn’t been given a name yet. Maybe it should be called lovestep or something. He’s gonna write some amazing music, you know it. He’s so talented he makes everyone else look a bit stupid.
Tell us about Greco Roman and how that came about, and what you’re doing with them.
They invited me to play one of their parties, Concrete and Glass. It was a bad one so they were like, let’s do another one, and I did their Christmas party, and it was wicked. Then I started sending tracks and I kinda got their vibes: slightly unbothered, chaotic, laid-back parties, slightly removed from cameras and trendy stuff.
It’s all word of mouth, right?
Yeah. And it’s all been really cool and worked out really nicely, so I did an EP with them last year and I’m doing another one with them now and it feels like a good progression, like part two of that first EP.
The nature of dance music must mean people who are off their face constantly surround you whilst you have to stay relatively straight. Does it get annoying having to talk to mashed people?
No, it’s alright. It doesn’t happen that often but when it does it’s usually quite funny. You might get chased by someone who’s completely mashed up, but they usually just want to say something really nice. Occasionally you get someone who wants to tell you how to write music, which is a bit weird. Yeah, drugs. It is funny, but that’s a key thing about dance music. The drugs have changed so much in the last couple of years that the nature of dance music itself has been changing. You don’t get any hands in the air anymore ‘cause no one’s on any pills and that’s a real fucking shame. It’s not as extroverted and loved-up as it used to be, these days it’s all about ketamine. I don’t take it but I just know it’s a shit raving drug, it’s really introverted and it gets you mashed, it doesn’t get you high. I’d much rather be in a club with a load of high people, or even sober people rather than people who are just mashed. That might sound really snooty, I bet, but I just think it’s a shame.
Have you got any gigs you’re particularly looking forward to?
I’m not doing many festivals this year, just a few, but I’m really looking forward to this festival in Norway called Slottsfjell. Norway’s going to be beautiful. And then the next day I’m flying to Belfast for a festival called Base. Oh, and Green Man. I’m going to be playing with Matthew Herbert and Gold Panda so it’s going to be a great build up of music on the Sunday night. Sunday nights at a festival are so much fun, cause anyone who’s still there is getting properly stuck in.
Who named TEED?
Um, I’m not going to tell you.
Ah, go on! You’re going to tell someone eventually.
Well it was just a bit of fun. And it worked. I know some people have got or are going to have problems with it, but then, I mean, what’s a cool name? The name doesn’t mean anything, it’s whether you can get up and play some good music that actually matters.
Is there anywhere it came from in particular?
Ah, I wrote a track called “Dinosaurs Having A Party”, then I went out for lunch, and then I went to a museum, and then I came back. And then I was like, I’m gonna do it, made a MySpace and that was it.
When was the last time you got utterly drunk?
My sister’s wedding, last weekend. I was singing along to “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” by Tina Turner and not getting it right at all. There were only six of us left on the dance floor. Actually, that’s not shameful, that’s cool! It’s a massive tune. I get very drunk a lot and I like it.
What would your perfect day in Oxford be?
Just walking round. Going to the gardens; to the parks; go jumping in the river; go for a punt. I love it more and more. Especially when the sun comes out. It’s actually got magic.
Finally, we’re going to have a dinosaur noise-off? Are you ready? Hang on, we need a judge. [Daniel Paul Wilton, esteemed photographer, joins the interview]
[coughs] Right, I’m ready, I’m warm.
Okay. Do you want to go first?
No, you go first.
Okay. RRRAAAAAARROOOW.
Right, this one’s called a Brapasaurus. It’s sixty feet long, fucking Google it! OOOOOOORRRRRRRROOOOUUUGH!
Quite good. Mine was a baby dinosaur by the way.
I’m going to do a flying dinosaur: RRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH! RRRRRAAAAAHHHH!
Dan: Wow, Orlando, you lost a lot of credibility just then.
Dammit, I only have baby dinosaur. Okay. RRRAAAAAARRRRRAAAAAAAAAAOW!
Dan: Wow.
You did that last time! That’s the same fucking dinosaur!
Dan: You lose, Orlando.
YEAH!
