Stream: The Heptones “Book Of Rules”

The Heptones’ Leroy Sibbles touched more than the majority of Studio One’s hit songs, whether in his own band or as the obfuscated group of studio musicians known variously as Sound Dimension or the Soul Investigators or as the man who played the bass on classics by the Abyssinians or Dennis Brown. He will be leading the Lions at Dub Club. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

When was the last time you visited L.A.?
Leroy Sibbles (bass/vocals): A long time man, a long time.
Did you get to visit Disneyland?
I’ve never been.
Do you want to go?
Oh yeah, man—any invitation—I’ll take you up, man! I want to go.
Is it true that the first time you ever met Toots of later Maytals fame he tried to sell you weed around the corner?
No, it’s not like that. He asked me to go buy a gram of weed for him—the other way around!
What was it like first meeting people like Toots and Jackie Mittoo and the Abyssianians and all the people who’d all becomes very famous later?
It was exciting ‘cause when you are young almost everything is exciting and new. After you grow up then you got to find stuff to really create new interest because you’ve seen it all. But growing up, everything is of high interest and plays a special part in your development, you know?
What’s the first moment in your musical career where you couldn’t believe what was happening to you?
It was the first time I heard my voice on the radio. The very first time. I was running around—I ran through Trench Town. I was like, ‘Hey, listen to that—that’s me there!’ That was the most exciting day of my life. Even to this day, nothing has ever topped that.
At Studio One, who was the best musician to spend an entire day with in the studio?
In the beginning, the most important person in the music at Studio One when I got there—the most important to me—was Jackie Mittoo. Oh yeah, he was super fantastic, man.
Didn’t he used to play two keyboards at once?
I forgot that he did that! He would do three things. A piano in one hand. A piano on the left hand and on the right hand he would be playing the melody of the song and on the foot pedal he would be playing the bass.
What kind of things did he teach you?
Almost like everything. Just being next to these guys and hearing them and watching them do their thing was a learning experience.
You were in the Studio One house band for so long—what songs do people know that you played on?
Oh yeah, man. We can start with ‘Satta Massa Ganna.’ ‘Declaration of Rights’ and ‘Pass The Dutchie’—that was originally another one called ‘Full Up.’ I did ‘Queen of the Minstrels.’ There was a group called the Mad Lads—they did a song called ‘Ten To One.’ All throughout the studio, I was recording for people who were out there on the streets. ‘Drifter,’ that was another big song. There’s so much songs, man—‘Freedom Blues.’ ‘Nanny Goat.’
How fast were you doing this?
Five songs per day. Every day—Monday to Friday. We had a lot of songs in there!
Did you get any credit?
No credit. I would say at least 60 to 65% of Studio One hit songs are mine. Albums too! Each album—remember No Man Is An Island by Dennis Brown? That’s one of the biggest. I played on that whole album. I played on John Holt’s Rob And Cheat You album. And a lot of the arrangements are mine. I was self taught. And I learned a lot from being around the studio there. I have a musical ear. I would say I’m born with that gift. If I hear something, I can figure music around it.
Would the musicians ever resist since you were so young?
After they saw what I could do, no. I think being the lead singer and lead arranger and vocalist they knew I had the talent. I was chosen by Jackie Mittoo. He picked me to come play this. I was 17 or 18—somewhere around there. They were all young guys—we were in the same age group. Fil Callendar on drums, Robbie Lyn on keyboards… After Jackie left, we were the guys left doing the stuff in the studio and they all looked up to me. I was the real roots guy down there. They were all midtown or uptown—I was the real roots guy, so I had the ideas. Because when Jackie Mittoo left—he was the arranger—and they went for Ernest Ranglin, and Ernest Ranglin came with jazz. It wasn’t roots—wasn’t what they were looking for! And they went for another guy Richard Ace—another jazz oriented kind of person and they couldn’t do it.
So they came to you?
I started laying some tracks for myself—for the Heptones. Earlier songs like ‘I Shall Be Released’ and another one that I did—‘Sweet Talking.’ No one really went and said, ‘Well, want you to do this.’ But I found myself in there at the controller picking the singers at the audition process and then Monday through Friday I would be there recording these people.
People off the street like you used to be?
People off the street would come in on Sunday and we’d listen to them and we’d lay something down if they had something going. Cornell Campbell, the Mad Lads—when I hear them I was like, ‘Yep, these are guys I want to work with.’ People like Burning Spear. They’d all come—right in the yard of the studio grounds!
How did you break it to them if it wasn’t going to work?
I tell them the truth. If I think you have something but you need to work on it some more. Or maybe the songs are good but they aren’t what we’re looking for so go write some other songs and come back. When Coxsone used to do auditions, he would hear some guy that he didn’t like and he would say, ‘Come back in six years time.’ Six years. You know he’s telling them don’t come back, you know. ‘Seven years!’
How did you know what you were looking for?
You could hear the guys who would. You got the ear for this thing. When the guy was approaching you, you knew it right away, man. There’s no easy answer. But if they have consistency and if they have the writing, you know—if it was what’s happening with the times, if they come with that, then that’s it. If he’s performing while he’s singing. If he was singing on four or five songs. Because there would be guys with only one song. And if he can’t sing another song, maybe he can’t fill that writing gap.
Who was somebody that you always wanted to work with that you never got a chance to?
Back then—it’s been a long time now. Back then I being a bass man, we used to do harmonies. We used to be covering so much material in the music, you know? I was arranging, writing, doing the horns—arranging the way the song should move. The only part that wasn’t so nice was not being able to get paid for what I was doing. Even getting recognized—even recognition because when these albums on the jacket, Coxsone would not put who the arranger was, or put himself sometimes. We the musicians should be getting credit. We should be the ones getting reimbursed. But no one told us the right way to go about this. It’s all messed up. I’ve been getting a small amount of royalty from the Island Record deal that we did. Yeah, right now with Atlantic, I’m still paid royalty. Every now and then I get a check and I’m grateful.
When you recorded with Lee Perry, he was wearing an astronaut suit—is that true?
A lie, man. He was so weird he could have wear it but he didn’t when I was around.

THE HEPTONES BACKED BY THE LIONS ON WED., JUNE 24, AT DUB CLUB AT THE ECHOPLEX, 1154 GLENDALE BLVD., ECHO PARK. 9PM / $10-$15 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. LEROY SIBBLES AND THE LIONS WILL RELEASE THE ‘PICTURE’ 45 SOON. VISIT LEROY SIBBLES AT LEROYSIBBLES.COM, THE HEPTONES.COM OR MYSPACE.COM/THEHEPTONES.

Download: Xu Xu Fang Mix Tape Podcast by Bobby Tamkin

1. Jane’s Addiction “Trip Away”
2. A Place To Bury Strangers “I Know I’ll See You”
3. Jackie Mittoo “Get Up and Get It”
4. Bob Marley “Natural Mystic”
5. Lee Hazlewood “For A Day Like Today”
6. David Axelrod “The Mental Traveler”
7. Kraftwerk “Spacelab”
8. Gas “Eins”
9. Igor Stravinsky “The Rite of Spring Part I: Danses des adolescentes”

Xu Xu Fang like pictures of horses better than pictures of people and will release their new EP Seven Days Now this week. Founder Bobby Tamkin speaks to Scott Schultz about radio drama, fog machines and stoned Oklahomans who like Gossip Girl.

The new EP Seven Days Now is more electronic than These Days’ stoner rock psychedelia. Was the shift a matter of incorporating new musicians to the sound or were you consciously looking to change?
Bobby Tamkin: That’s the weird thing about the band. Most styles of music have elements that I like, and I want to explore those. Sometimes I don’t know if the guitar song is going to fit with the electronic beat-based stuff, but it’s not a conscious effort. If there could be different styles of music back to back, I would love to do that, but I don’t know if that would make a cohesive record or show.
You use a lot of sound effects in your music. Do you factor the effects into your songwriting, or do you add them after the tracks are recorded?
It depends on how the song was created. It may have started with a keyboard sound or an effect, or it may start with a drumbeat. There’s really no rhyme or reason. Suddenly it ambles into something, and at some point I will stop and figure it’s ready to go. Some of the sounds I personally record, probably 85 percent of the effects you hear. I like to run around with a microphone and capture sounds. I love the sound of horses.
Where were the horse sounds recorded?
The horses were a combination of both homemade and post-production. I had a recording that I made of horses, but it wasn’t strong, so I enhanced it with a little sound effect synth sound. Part of the fun is creating it all on my own.
How many musicians have been members of the Fang?
It’s unfortunate that it’s been a process. It comes down to whether people are up to do it. Show up and play—no drama. Enjoy the music and play it. If that’s the case, you’re all set, but there have always been different circumstances. Everyone is always a little unique. It would be cool if it was the same setup all the way through, but it’s getting there, it’s getting there. Our current lineup played together for the first time when we opened for Swervedriver at the Fonda. That was a little over 11 months ago.
Your music seems influenced by movie soundtracks and radio theatre. Do you have any favorite soundtracks or soundtrack artists who inspire you?
Oh man, that’s almost an impossible question. The score I’ve been listening to a lot lately is Bernard Herrmann’s North By Northwest. Bernard Herrmann is pretty much my favorite. It’s like hearing Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ over and over and over again, but there are subtle changes. He died in ‘76. The last score that he did was Taxi Driver. He died in the middle, but he was awesome. He’s partially responsible for the modern sweeping scores that you hear today.
Did you begin the radio drama piece with script, music, or concept?
I had a few bits of music that I recorded and didn’t do anything with. I really liked those old radio theater mystery dramas with the sound effects and I thought, hmmm, it would be interesting to make something like that, but make it a little more contemporary musically. I came up with a loose idea of what I wanted the story to be, and then I scripted out simple scenes and had friends do the voices. Then I wrote a bunch of new music for it to fill it out.
How many characters did you voice?
Just one.
The rat who turns in his friend to get whacked?
Yeah—terrible voice! It was so poorly acted. If you don’t know me, it may seem like the character was supposed to be that way, but if you know me, you know that I could have been so much better. Once I had the band together, we decided to play live. We didn’t have a singer yet, but we figured it would be cool to have images up behind us of L.A. in wintertime, and L.A. WEEKLY wrote a story about it and said that we played a live soundtrack to film, and I was like, ‘Hell no—this isn’t a film!’ I went back and shot hours and hours of more stuff, and I ended up editing all over again and finally it became some sort of a narrative and what it had been described as. It was never intended to be a score to a film.
From there, how did you segue into actual songs?
I didn’t want to make another film. I could have improved upon it, definitely, but I didn’t want to make something that would compete with it. Songs seemed like a good challenge: to write a song. It’s hard.
What was your first song?
‘These Days.’
Do you have more new songs beyond those on Seven Days Now?
We have eight new songs that haven’t been recorded yet. So we’re going to write two more and then make a full length with all new stuff.
How would you describe the new music?
That it’s more like The Mourning Son. Less dancey, more guitar. The real shape of it will happen when I get into the studio. At that point who knows what it could turn into.
You had two songs played on Gossip Girl, and they’ll be using a third song this month. Are you attracting Gossip Girl fans?
I guess it’s a testament to the producers and music supervisors that they would put songs like ours into a show like that. It was a total surprise. There are probably some 16-year-old stoner chicks in Oklahoma who check us out on Myspace after seeing Gossip Girl, and that’s totally cool.
Adam Franklin of Swervedriver found you on Myspace and gave you an opening slot when they came to L.A. last year, and Gossip Girl also found you with minimal hype. Are you just lucky?
We seem to have some sort of homing beacon like Batman for cool people. Adam Franklin liked the concept of the horse heads, and that drew him to us, and then he checked out the songs and like the music.
How did you come up with using the horse head pictures for the band photos?
I didn’t have a band when I put my first song up, and I wanted to put portraits of people to represent each musician, but then I figured if I put up a horse head, I wouldn’t have to change pictures. So I came up with a bunch of unique looking horse heads until I could get my band together, and then I just kept it. For a while it was funny—certain horses were more popular than others and would get more comments. I don’t know why.
You guys have some heavy jam breaks during your live songs, where Barbara (Cohen—vocals) dissolves into the murky mix with all three guitars going full rumble. Are you looking to make your jams even larger onstage?
We’ve always talked about doing one jam for the whole show. Just play ‘Good Times’ for an hour. It would be really fun to play that way, but the audience will get bored after a while unless they’re on something.
How long has Xu Xu Fang been using fog onstage?
Since day one. We also use the Stargate and really we’d really go nuts with the lights if we could. We’d need a full time person just for lights and fog. Barbara and Jenna (keyboards) don’t like the fog, because they say it messes with their voices. We had a residency at the Silverlake Lounge and we fogged that place up like crazy. I think he may have told us to stop at some point.
Your first CD had a very L.A. quality. Is the city a character within the story?
I love the atmospheric sounds, the rain—which we don’t get a lot of, but I think it has a real evocative sound in this city. The blasé—neither here nor thereness—fits the tone of ‘These Days.’ This city is so unique and there are so many great bands from so many scenes that are each unique but distinctly L.A., like Jane’s Addiction, NWA, The Doors, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Love, Van Halen…I think the bombast of the city is definitely in our stage show. The music is intelligent, but it’s not afraid to go huge.

MANIMAL VINYL AND RADIO FREE SILVERLAKE PRESENT XU XU FANG WITH VOICEsVOICES, DOWNTOWN UNION AND THE VOYEURS ON THU., APR. 30, FOR THE RELEASE PARTY OF XU XU FANG’S SEVEN DAYS NOW AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD.,ECHO PARK. 10 PM / FREE / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. VISIT XU XU FANG AT XUXUFANG.COM.