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He was born in Zambia, he collects plastic junk toys and he once played golf in the wee small hours on Clapham Common with nothing but the light from a miner's helmet to guide his aim. Not that it helped. He lost 48 balls. He's also partial to a spot of cow pushing, a popular pastime down Devon way. Apparently. Oh, and he's a resident spinner at Heavenly Social. The junk collector/midnight golfer/bovine shover/DJ is Richard Fearless.His partner is Steve Hellier, the son of a painter whose earliest memories are of weirdy-beardy jazz musicians popping into the family home for an impromptu blast. Richard's adventures started four years ago, with early demos coming to the attention of Concrete. He and Steve subsequently signed to Concrete in 1994, with a contract including a clause stating that Richard's other skills as a graphic designer be used for all sleeves and visuals relating to the band. The debut single, Opium Shuffle was released early in 1995. Richard and Steve weren't called Death In Vegas back then, they were called Dead Elvis. Which didn't go down too well with fans of that Presley bloke. While the name Death In Vegas maintains the obsession for others' obsession with The King, they no longer get people turning up at gigs in blue suede shoes in anticipation of some kind of Bjorn Again type tribute show. Richard and Steve's first outing as Death In Vegas was Dirt, a cut released to widespread acclaim in March 1996. It was accompanied by a UK tour with Lionrock, for which the pair rejected the idea of using backing tapes and instead solicited the assistance of guitarist Ian Button, bassist Matt Flint and keyboard player Oli Vessy. Dirt was then followed by Rocco, which received heavy support from Radio One's Evening Sessions and further strengthened Death In Vegas' student fan base. Steve recently decided to devote his time to Death In Vegas' studio endeavors, leaving the live mantel of Death In Vegas to Richard. So what do Death In Vegas' records sound like? Good question. Breakbeat, guitars, acid bleeps, rub-a-dubs, and fucked-up noises all have parts to play, but Richard's musical influences put them in a genre all of their own. Their debut album, Dead Elvis, was released through Concrete in the UK in March 1997, and will be out in the US through Time Bomb/Concrete in September. |
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'It's really easy to make a record that makes people smile, but it's much harder to make them sad.' Meet Richard Fearless, top flight club DJ, fully qualified graphic designer and ace face of Death in Vegas. He's spent five years reaching the forefront of dance music but, encouragingly, he doesn't speak any of its accepted languages. He's neither 'avin it large of a weekend, geezer', nor waffling on about 'breaking down boundaries, man', preferring to cultivate an altogether deeper and more lasting vision for his group than the kind of 2D groovology his fellow DJs will be playing out for the next week or two. Big beat, nu house, speed garageSDance music's incestuous generic inter-morphing process lumbers on, each bonding phase leaving behind a couple of chart hits and a handful of passable records. When Death in Vegas released their album, Dead Elvis, in March 1997, it stood out for no other reason than that you sensed immediately it was a record you would still be listening to in a year's time without fear of embarrassment. Whipping together elements of dub reggae, techno, electrofunk, soundtrack music, jazz and Big Guitar Rock, the Vegas game plan is one of enlightened eclecticism, born of Richard's diverse listening. While he and main co-vegas fella Steve Hellier were first brought together by house and techno's enduring spirit of '88, the current Fearless model is more prone to wax poetic about Dr.John, or an obscure B side by Chicago art-groovers Tortoise. Richard remains a massive fan of Jamaican music, more likely to pepper his DJ sets with old Augustus Pablo seven inchers on Rockers International, or Uptown Top Ranking by Althea and Donna, than the latest tune on Wall of Sound. Death in Vegas formed by accident. While finishing up a course in graphic design at the London College of Printing circa 1993 - a background which would prepare him to create all of his band's artwork - Richard was Djing Thursday nights round the corner at Soho's Job Club. Out one night, Richard met Steve Hellier through someone he was living with. Steve had a job lecturing at Goldsmiths College. He also had a studio and even put out a few records on his own label. The following morning, they still thought it would be a good idea to do some tunes together. Within a few weeks, they had completed one - the darkly dubnotic, Opium Shuffle. Their mate Tom Rowland suggested they send a tape of it to a friend, who just happened to run the Deconstruction subsidiary Concrete, and suddenly Richard and Steve had a deal. And where everyone else is busy cluttering theirs with all manner of hi-tech squiggles and irrelevant layers, the Death in Vegas sound is born of the yawning dynamics of dub and roots reggae production. 'These days there's often almost too much going on in the sound,' Richard explains, simply. 'The best records are the simplest ones. It's so difficult to make a record that's simple but still really strong. Think of the best dub, or the best techno like basic channel. If you can make a groove with very little information attached, it can be so much more powerful.' Vegas. A neon lit hell in the middle of nowhere. The hole in the heart of the American dream. A good place to die. Initially the band was called Dead Elvis - a reference to America's posthumous obsession with The King (and also the title of a brilliant book on the subject by Griel Marcus). Richard and Steve soon decided that Death in Vegas would look just as good in lilac neon, and renamed themselves in time for No Ones Driving, their first tour supporting DJs Dave Clarke and Jon Carter. With Richard still at college but also making a name for himself as resident DJ at the Heavenly Social, the band was taking off by itself. So Richard and Steve spent the following 12 months attending to the material issue. They came up with Dirt, a lumbering hip hop beat overlaid with a huge guitar riff and samples from the 1967 Woodstock Festival. Dirt finally came out in March 96. On the flipside was the altogether different, GBH, an organ led ska tune fit to kick anybody's summer carnival. Also promo'd around the same time was a track called Rematerialize, a fantastic reworking of Scientist's 70s dub classic, Dematerialize. Faced with the prospect of a tour with Justin Robertson's Lionrock, Richard and Steve got a settled live band sorted out - Mat Flint (bass), Ian Button (guitar) and Oli Vessey (keyboards). The band's reputation grew through a couple more thundering macabre dancefloor singles, Rocco, and Rekkit and then the Dead Elvis LP itself. The band followed it up with a cover version of Twist & Crawl by The Beat, featuring its original singer Ranking Roger. The band began gigging widely, both as support to the Chemical Brothers (where they were joined by Ranking Roger) and on their own. After time spent hammering the festivals, Death in Vegas have become a proper live group. Emblematic of the freedom of movement within their collective, Steve has retreated from live performance, to concentrate more on his writing partnership and co-production role with Richard. There's some killer new stuff in the offing. Vegas. Viva, and all that. |
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This review was taken from CDNOW
Formerly provocatively called Dead Elvis, Death In Vegas occupy similar ground to Andy Weatherall 'sSabres Of Paradise, in that their aggressive, rock-edged dancefloor sound owes a huge debt to the punk ethos of 1977. Led by DJ Richard Fearless and producer Steve Hellier, the group announced itself with the release of a series of mesmerizing, bombastic singles - 'Opium Shuffle', 'Dirt', 'Rocco', 'GBH' and 'Rekkit' - all of which were also included on their debut album. That album, titled after their original choice of name, Dead Elvis , was widely celebrated both within the mainstream and dance music communities for its intelligence, musical freshness and daring. Much of the imagery was inspired by Fearless's acknowledged fondness for junk culture: 'I'm really into American crime writing, the stark side. I'm a bit of an Elvis junk collector. I also like collecting snowstorms, plastic toys . . . ' This love of esoteric touchstones was reflected in the group's music. As Select reviewer Andrew Male testified: 'It's like Elvis '68, too many downers, carrying a bit too much flab, but still cool, still in black leather and still making everything else look dead on a toilet.'. |