by SCOTT C

Sandwiched neatly somewhere between the music of Bronski Beat and Zapp & Roger is Montreal’s own Chromeo. This understated techno-funk super-duo is armed with an undying love for analog synths, computer love and electric guitars, and they are not joking.

Last year, Dave 1 and P-Thugg (aka Dave Macklovitch and Patrick Gemayel) released the sleeper hit "You’re So Gangsta" on Turbo Record’s Faberge imprint, along with a remix by electro darling Playgroup. They’ve opened for the Streets in New York and Adult in Miami and still don’t know who their audience is. With 808 and talk-box in hand, these guys are slowly preparing the world for their first album, due out early next year. The Mirror spoke to P-Thugg about the pair’s funky childhood beginnings.

Mirror: What musicians would make it into P-Thugg’s fantasy band lineup?

P-Thugg: Good question. I would probably put Paul Simon on vocals, Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Phil Collins on the drums and Roger Troutman on rhythm guitar. Lead guitar would be between Eddie Van Halen and Jimi Hendrix, and I would put fuckin’ Rick James on the bass (laughs). Oh, and the I-Threes on backup vocals. That would be a dope band, man.

M: That paints a fairly clear picture of your musical tastes, wouldn’t you say?

P: Yeah. I mean, I’m listening to Paul Simon right now. I love Paul Simon. I love Rick James and Cameo, Klymaxx, the Jets, Marcus Miller -

M: You into David Sanborn?

P: He’s all right, but I’m more into people like Midnight Starr.

M: How did you get into all this techno-funk shit? Because when I was growing up, the only place that I was hearing Zapp, Parliament and Midnight Starr was at my aunt Darlene’s house. My parents never had it. She was my cool aunt.

P: I wasn’t even here, bro. I wasn’t even in Canada, and didn’t start listening to music until I was eight. I was in Lebanon and all I had was Arabic music. When I came to Canada, I got into Michael Jackson, and then I started listening to hip hop. This is back when it was Salt-N-Pepa and Heavy D and all them. I really got into hip hop in elementary school, right up through my second or third year of high school, and then on the side I started listening to heavy metal in secret! Led Zeppelin and Metallica.

M: Why was it a secret? I remember people listening to a lot of different kinds of music for a while in elementary and high school.

P: You know how kids are, man. We had our cliques and our crews. There were the fucked-up people, the nerds and the preps and then there was us, the fresh kids. We were in dance competitions, with the Chicago Bulls caps and the fresh kicks with the funky laces. I could never have come out and said that I liked Metallica. They would have been like, "You can’t do the running man and listen to Metallica!"

M: (laughing) So basically you had to keep up appearances.

P: Basically. I remember seeing Dave around, and this is when I didn’t even know him. He was in the hippie rock clique, and we used to look at them like they were bums! (laughs) Meanwhile we were wearing polka-dot shirts with MC Hammer pants.

Rock of ages

M: So how did the two of you manage to hook up with all the cliques in place?

P: There was this guy in high school who wanted to put a band together. He called Dave, who played guitar, and I started playing bass while this guy played drums. I bought a $150 bass and we had a band. We were like 16, 17 years old.

M: What was the band called?

P: We called ourselves Rubbadoid. Rubbadoid Crew (laughs). We did a demo, and changed drummers, but Dave and me always stayed together. We became the core and we would just change musicians around us. We actually did a second album, but soon after that, Dave got into hip hop, right when I had stopped listening to it. I stopped listening around Cypress Hill with all the weed rhymes and head-nod shit, but he was just starting to get into it.

M: I guess Audio Research Records must have come shortly after that?

P: Well, Dave started getting into production, and Audio Research came just after that. We kept the band going though. One day, Tiga from Turbo Records here in Montreal mentioned to Dave that he really liked some of the Obscure Disorder shit. He asked Dave if he was interested in trying something on the electronic music tip. He said, yes of course, and called me up.

M: Just like that.

P: Yep. I told him I was down, and we proceeded to whip together two half-assed songs for Tiga, who had no idea what he was getting into, because he’d only heard Dave’s hip hop beats. He listened to it and was like, "Okay, let’s go!" (laughs)

Mouthing off

M: Fast forward to now, though. You’ve already put a single out, with an album on the way in January, 2004, and Chromeo is now doing live shows of electro-funk with a hip hop sensibility. There’s got to be people out there who think this is a joke.

P: Of course! But it’s not a joke! I didn’t just start listening to Klymaxx just because I liked it. You start and it’s like, this is funny, but it’s good! And you just get into it, man. Now I love all of that shit. I can’t listen to anything else but ’80s techno-funk (laughs). I wake up in the morning and I need my Mtume, man. I fell in love with the drum machines and the Minimoog basses.

M: What are you guys using onstage during a live show?

P: Whatever we can’t play, we put on a drum machine or a digital eight-track, press play and we play over it. I usually do the talk-box and the bass live, and Dave sings and plays the guitar live.

M: Not too many new bands using the talk-box today.

P: That was a big thing in my musical life. The discovery of Roger Troutman and the talk-box. I had to play that shit. I bought it 10 years ago, and haven’t put it down.

M: A lot of people hate any and all songs with vocoder or auto-tune in them these days, so how do you get away with the talk-box, an integral part of the Chromeo sound?

P: Vocoder and auto-tune are so overused and that’s why people hate it. Honestly, if those same people saw me using the talk-box live they’d be impressed. It’s not a fuckin’ machine like you hear in Cher songs. People are usually curious when they see it. First of all, the sound is going in your mouth through a tube and it’s loud. You get headaches, and sometimes even faint. Imagine taking a speaker and putting it in your mouth, and then forcing the sound back out of your mouth. It truly is a skill, and part of the way we make music.

With Sean Kosa and Jordan Dare at Neon at SAT,
Saturday, August 30, 10pm, $10

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