Sweat your body dry: Enter the world of Decius

Music

What do you get when members of Fat White Family, Paranoid London and Trashmouth Records walk into a bar? Decius of course.

As Luke – one of the two Trashmouth founders – puts it, this London-based bunch of renegades slid into being irrationally.

Both Luke and Liam, the other half of Trashmouth, have moved in the same circles as Paranoid London’s Quinn Whalley for years: they’ve shared bills in London, New York and Miami; bonded over music during debauched late night escapades; and spent many a night down the Brixton Windmill.

It was at this South London institution that Trashmouth Records ran their regular nights, and where fellow rebels Warmduscher and Fat White Family would get their break. It’s no wonder then that much of this rapscallion community of musicians would collaborate under various guises and iterations, leading eventually in a roundabout way to the formation of Decius.

Decius Vol 1. is the first proper collection of their punkish dance floor cuts. Released in November (which doesn’t seem very long ago when you’ve been rinsing it like us), the self-titled LP is a wash of sleazy acid house, dark, uncut disco and raw jacking Chicago and NY sounds, made all the more intoxicating by Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi’s sensual vocals. Simply put, it’s music for the sweatiest of basements.

As we put the album on for its millionth rotation, we also welcome Warmduscher frontman (and one of the glues that first bound the group together) Clams, who tries his very best to get inside the psyche of each band member.

Read on to see how many of the group told him to fuck off, as well as their favourite philosophers, first date recipes, stage lubricants and Youtube personalities…

Clams: Liam, I remember a long time ago, on a Medicine 8 tour in California you explained to me your reason for choosing music over art. It was along the lines of “competing with the world’s beauty is much harder than making better sounds than it.”

Does this still hold true and if so, compare Decius to your favorite natural sound of the earth, and then if you have the time or energy tell me to fuck off, in English but with a kind of French accent. If you don’t feel like doing that, let us know your favorite philosopher and why!!

Liam: It will forever hold true. & if I can be so bold, I should liken the sound of Decius to the dankness of a nocturnal tropical frog’s mating chorus – croaking, rhythmic, pumping. & the mournful whimper of the defeated dog fox at night, full of unfulfilled sexual yearning, as he skulks away from the alpha, to once again wander alone. . .

Clams, I would sooner blow you a French kiss. . .

Speaking as a (cod)philosopher myself, I cannot conscionably answer that question. I permit myself but one allegiance: The Truth

Clams: Luke, you’ve always been the voice of reason in my mind and in our circle, please tell us all the rational behind forming a group like Decius and continuing to make music in the world we live in? Then if you can, tell me to fuck off in any language of your choice or alternatively maybe tell the world your “go to” recipe for cooking on first dates!

Luke: Well Clams, as you are already keenly aware, being “the voice of reason in our circle” is a bar set lower than a snake’s belly. So, as with most things I seem to end up involved with, the forming of Decius was not only irrational, but completely beyond my control… It seemed to slowly slide into being, oozing under the back door and by the time I realised what was happening, it was thankfully too late for my reasonableness to stop it. I honestly feel that the world we are currently ruining needs all the irrational, unreasonableness we can muster. I am therefore consciously and conscientiously doing all I can to keep my good sense locked in the attic. Hopefully Decius will help to provide some vital cleansing chaos, whilst like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream, I just go with the flow… Perhaps as a by-product we can drown some of the many who deserve to die in disco sweat.

In conclusion, I thought I would combine two of your favourite languages to tell you to fuck off in… Italian and German. Cagati in mano e prenditi a schiaffi, schattenparker!! PS first date go to recipe.. got to be this devine, yet super easy to prepare, Spanish dish: Chupe Mantequilla de mi Culo.

Clams: Lias! First of all, I have to tip my skivvies to your second to none skills of writing lyrics and writing in general. I’ve been a fan since Champagne Holocaust and loved reading the stuff you did with the Social over lock down.

All that aside, do you find performing in the dance world a breath of fresh air as there’s no need to focus on lyrics and it’s almost more of becoming an instrument in the music rather than a focal point of a group? Then if you’re feeling up for it, maybe tell me to fuck off without actually saying it, and give the world the name of your favorite stage lotion!

Lias: I’ll start with the lotion. Ideally, if money were no issue, I would grease myself up in coconut butter. Coconut butter makes you feel like you’re about to indulge in some Thai food or something otherwise exotic. There isn’t enough exoticism on stage these days. That being said, it’s not really plausible financially, not anymore. I tend therefore, to utilise the backstage margarine or butter. These leave your audience feeling like they’ve just encountered a fry up, which is disconcerting for them… stage time, usually about 9pm, it’s an unnatural hour to be thinking about a fry up. The problem with this is that no matter how hard you rinse yourself down later, you carry this essence of fry up with you wherever you go. This was the main reason I could never have a girlfriend during the peak Fats touring period. The kind of woman who would have accepted that, accepted having to live and sleep with a human fry up, was not the kind of woman I wanted to be with. A catch 22.

I therefore spent that period of my life for the most part alone. People don’t really appreciate this, the dark side of being a song and dance man, the terrible price some of us have to pay for that little slice of peoples attention spans. They don’t see you there, reeking of fry up alone in a motel room, or worse, not alone, with your bass player, just you and this almost-musician, the shopping channel, a cup of warm beer and the overpowering stench of fry up emanating form your own crotch. They’d rather not think about that, and I don’t/can’t blame them…

As for the using your voice as an instrument and the absence of pressure when hitting up the electronic tunes as opposed to fronting a band, yes it’s a relief, but it’s also kind of double the graft. My problem is I can’t stop myself from getting carried away. That’s basically the gig, fronting, it’s your job to get carried away with whatever sentiment the bad are sending out there. Acid house techno is at an energy level designed to sweat your body dry. There’s no let up. So, in the studio, it’s more fun, the most laid back kind of session you can imagine. But out there live, it’s war, it’s a bloody conflict with the limitations of this flimsy body of mine. It’s all on credit. You pay the price sometime around Tuesday. But lets not get into that. Not now.

Clams: Quinn. In your own words, hello darling! A lot of these ninny’s out there have no idea of all the projects you’re a part of and when it’s all said and done, you’ll be the Elton to so many of today’s Bernies in this world of music we masquerade in today. It’s undeniable.

Can you talk us through your process and then after, you guessed it give me your sexiest fuck off Clams and maybe a side slice of who’s your favorite YouTube Personality is at the moment?

Quinn: Clams! The most important part of the process is to make sure you hang out with extreme people. Extreme people always leave something gold on the hard drive at the end of hard days piss-uppery. As far as process goes it’s a bit like the movie Old Boy. The guy invents his own martial art in solitary confinement cos he doesn’t have anybody to practice with. I used to listen to records and convince myself that I knew exactly how the sound was achieved even though I had nothing remotely resembling a studio. I had nothing with which to put these ideas into practice to see if I was correct. I wasn’t, of course. So now I tend to stick to the few things I know how to do well: get drunk/high, press record, hope for a miracle.

As for YouTube channels you could do a lot worse than check out Robin D Bullock. Batshit crazy evangelical prophet. There’s a ton of them but he’s my favourite at the moment. There’s a playlist of his prophecies on the channel. It’s quite something!