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Beardyman chats to I Like Music

ILM: What has been the most bizarre thing that has been sampled at a Battlejam?

Beardyman: I think the weirdest thing was....um....someone shouted Multiple Sclerosis into the microphone and we tried to make a tune out of that. Do you remember the plane crash that happened at Heathrow? Someone shouted out 'plane crash at Heathrow' and that's an amazing recording. I've got that one, it's on the myspace I think. It was probably the weirdest. We managed to make a song out of it because we had a freestyle MC, Klumzytung (one of our resident freestylers) and he made this ridiculous song about the plane crash at Heathrow. Yeah, that was probably the weirdest one! And it was OK because no-one died! And then JFB started to scratch in this recording of me that he had from ages ago saying 'That's not funny' and it was just like 'There's a plane crash.......that's not funny' Haha!

ILM: You have been the UK Beatbox champion for the last two years. But, you're going to be judging this year, which is cool. What will you be looking for in the winner? What are the ingredients of a champion beatboxer?

Beardyman: I suppose showmanship, musicality and the usual things, technical skill level, loudness, tightness of beats, the level of realism....er....all that kind of stuff. Also, originality, hopefully someone will do something really crazy. That pretty much covers it.

ILM: How old were you when you realised you could beatbox?

Beardyman: I've always beatboxed really, I just didn't have a word for it. I did it when I was, I don't know, 3 There was that guy from Police Academy and I thought that was quite cool but I wouldn't say he was my idol. Then I saw Rahzel when I was 21 and I was like 'Wow, I've been making these noises for years, maybe I should do it more.'

ILM: Are there any sounds that you enjoy doing the most?

Beardyman: At the moment I'm most excited about the technology that can be applied to beatboxing. You can make music so immediately. For me, what is exciting is how much you can loop things and capture them. Music production centres around sounds and grabbing them and now you can do that live. That is what I try to do in my shows. I use two kaos pads and string them together and sample what I do as I go. Instead of one beatboxer I can effectively have 8 beatboxers at one time. I can make live songs. That's what excites me at the moment. I'm constantly learning new noises, which is always good to do. I'm bored by beatboxing now, to the extent that there are always going to be kids that are really good at it, I'm going to try and keep progressing.

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Related links:

1. Beardyman - Battlejam
2. International Beatbox Convention 2008 Review