Intergalactic planetary hopping
Pete Tong has called them a "dance music supergroup", Zane Lowe dubbed their new single "an anthem in the making" and Lady Sovereign contacted them via their MySpace site to request a collaboration...So what makes Bodyrox duo aka Nick Bridges and John Pearn so adept at bridging the crossover gap between clubland and the mainstream? In 2006 'Yeah Yeah' blasted onto the scene in Miami and proceeded to gain widespread recognition on airwaves across Britain, hitting No.2 on the UK chart. With what must have seemed like literal overnight success, Bodyrox had become a household name for dance music fans and chart fanatics alike. Nick Bridges and Luciana Caporaso – the lady with the voice – spoke to base.ad about their Ivor Novello award nomination, perving on Christina Aguilera, outer space adventures and what they've got packed up their already bulging magical sleeves to hit us with next.
Both having been heavily involved in the music scene for a number of years (Pearn as a producer with house production outfit Full Intention and Bridges already comfortable with residencies for Ministry of Sound, and more recently DTPM at Fabric), it was only a matter of time before the pair crossed paths. Bridges explains that the guys originally met whilst he was playing for MOS at Pacha Ibiza: "We got talking and thought it'd be a good idea to do a track together. We worked on a number of tracks, one of which was an electro project which became Bodyrox very quickly."
'Yeah Yeah' had actually been around for four years doing it's rounds on the underground club scene; it was originally an instrumental track which Bodyrox eventually decided they wanted to cross over. For this they needed vocals to make the song more accessible to the masses. Cue Luciana. "We had about three different vocals put on it, loads of different remixes done, Luci came up with the lyrics and the delivery and the mix that you've all heard with her is the one that stuck." says Bridges.
It's not difficult at all to see why the lads picked Luciana either. Coming from a more punk/nu-wave background, the distinct rasping, high-pitched and screeching vocals that she provided for the single were exactly what the track needed in order to appeal to the candy squaffing, attitude ridden, party loving public at a time when nu-rave was about to saturate the market. The pure bitch-fuelled lyrics of 'You think you've got it all worked out/But you don't know nothing, nothing, nothing' were penned one evening, as Luciana reveals: "I'd had an argument with Nick [Clow – her writing partner] and I'd written these lyrics. I said to him 'These are about you, what do you think of that?' and he said 'It's great! Let's go and put it down in the studio.'"
With the success of the single came an excitable buzz surrounding Bodyrox, which for Bridges, was unexpected: "It's difficult enough to get any dance song into the mainstream now, and particularly something so underground, so yeah that was a massive surprise for us all." Along with this surge of attention and with all eyes placed firmly on the collaborative trio, came an Ivor Novello nomination for the song, which Luciana still has difficulty understanding: "The boiler man was here at the time when I received the letter and then all of a sudden he was talking to me and I wasn't listening. It was like he was talking in slow motion, I'm reading this letter and I'm thinking 'That's just not right, that's not for me.'"
With follow-up tune 'What Planet you on' a similarly radio-friendly expedient prevails, as the boys again enlist the vocal flourishes of Luciana. This time there's a manifest focus on outer space with a brilliantly colourful and expressive video, already being played widely across many digital video channels, which takes inspiration from the 1968 Barbarella film featuring Jane Fonda. It shows Luciana camped up in an outfit that'd make 90s Eurotrash pop culture party in it's neon encrusted grave. She jumps from planet to planet, with meteors flying all over the place and the trademark synth laden jollyisms of 'Yeah Yeah' are taken to an even catchier level, with plenty of butt-grooving bass thrown into the mix. Luciana provided a lot of creative input in conjunction with the director, Michael Baldwin, and even cried when she first saw it – "like a loser, I was over the moon" – perfectly in keeping with the space theme we'd say.
Apart from Luciana, we know you'll all be asking who's likely to pop up on the eagerly anticipated album, which will drop "next year sometime". Bridges is somewhat shady when pressed for more details, replying: "We've spoken to a number of established artists and they're all very interested so we're just gonna wait 'til all the instrumentals are done and then confirm some collaborations. We've spoken to Alesha [Dixon] from Mis-Teeq as well. There's a few different people in the pipeline but I can't give too much away at the moment." Oh go on, at least tell us if you'll be taking Lady Sovereign up on her offer? "Er, not 100 per cent sure – she's really busy at the moment, as are we. We haven't sent her any backing tracks as yet but it's something we'd definitely be interested in." That's clear as mud then, we'll have to stay tuned, ears pricked back, for more details.
Bridges does however divulge his dream collaboration : "Vocally – Christina Aguilera, there isn't another voice in the world like hers. Whether that would actually work with a filthy electro thing, I'm not entirely sure but erm, I think I'd like to collaborate with her just to meet her and stare at her in the studio for a few hours!"
Perverted dreams aside, the new album isn't finished, what with all the touring the guys have been doing worldwide, and the fact that the collaborations haven't been finalised yet. Bridges did however, kindly treat us to a couple of snippets of information: "We're doing some slow tempo bits as well, rather than it just being massive club hit after massive club hit, there's some experimental stuff as well. We're moving things forward. 'What Planet you on' is very much a radio record and the new track, which I can't say too much about, is a little bit more club friendly."
We wonder whether Bridges agrees with the media terming their sound 'nu-rave'? "It's a bit weird isn't it? I can't really put my finger on what nu-rave is now. Generally tags are used by journalists so that they can slate something when it goes out of fashion, so I don't really like to pigeonhole ourselves into that tag." With DJs everywhere shuddering at their desk with the sheer commercially marketable and itchingly catchy bombshell of good looks which is their new single, whatever the media decides to use in their attempt to describe Bodyrox, we're sure they won't be getting any sort of slating for the foreseeable future. If you can't wait for the January release of the new single, or indeed the pending release of the new Bodyrox album, then Luciana may be able to help. She's got a collection, Featuring Luciana, which brings together all of her collaborations from over the past year-and-a-half and it's gracing the shelves in December. Early Christmas presents anyone?
Words: Naomi Misquita-Rice
Unsurprisingly, the Scala is ram-packed tonight, with swathes of people squashed up against one another like shrink-wrapped slices of halloumi. For good reason though; Robyn, Sweden's finest export of late, is in town for one night only. It's uncanny, as you look around the room, to see the prodigious number of peroxide bobs attached to the quirky troupe of Robyn-ite clones, all like carbon copies of the popstrell herself.
