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 The Dirty Feel are loud, Funky and at times psychedelic.
London trio, Kez, Nick Hirsch and Virgil Howe, meet me tonight in a north London pub to discuss the imminent release of an Ep, putting the finishing touches to their debut Lp, produced by none other than Steve HOWE of late 60s mega group Yes, and their more unexpected foray into the music world....
I quickly realise, to my joy, that this guys are not only seriously handsome, but also very dedicated to their art and all about putting fun back into funk.
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Florence: Hi guys!
You can often be seen live on the London scene and with an Ep about to be released it’s all happening right now, but when and how did it all start?
Virgil: The Dirty Feel is only three years young!
Kez: It’s a big crossover factor. Virgil and I were in a band for years and I was also in a band with Nick. Nick and Virgil were living together and also playing in a band...
We were each becoming disenchanted with what we were doing. We all got out of that and it became obvious that we should form our own band. We’ve always wanted to get it together and one day we were free to do that and start playing.
Virgil: We really chose each other. Then we thought that we really needed a singer as none of us were singing in previous bands, but then we decided that we could all sing.
Florence: How do you decide who should sing on which number?
Virgil: Whoever writes it!
Nick has been writing a lot of the riffs and songs recently, therefore he has a very strong idea of the emotion of the track and then it’s only natural for him to also write the lyrics for that song and sing it.
However we try to include all of our voices in every song. We’ll always sing the chorus, we do harmonies...
Nick: We tend to write the music first so there is always a scope for someone else to feel something and write the lyrics.
Someone else can write the chorus.
Florence: Tell me all about your rise to fame.
Nick: Yes! When is it going to happen? We’re still waiting for it!
For the first year we did nothing but rehearse. We didn’t do any gigs. We just needed to find out what we were into.
Pete, the guy who owned our rehearsal space kind of kicked our ass into doing a gig, and from that we just got out onto the scene.
Kez: He really pushed us to get out there. After that we recorded and put out a ‘white label’, and that got picked up by club Cargo and ‘Get down’ ended up on their compilation ‘Demo City’.
Virgil: We also self-produced a 7” , it cost us a few hundred pounds and we distributed it ourselves around record shops, here in London and around Bristol.
To our surprise, the Rough Trade record shop in Covent Garden called up to say that they had sold out and needed more copies of the record, so we pressed some more, and again they sold out very quickly.
And then we were told that people would go to Rough Trade asking if they’d heard of ‘The Dirty Feel’, but really we had no promo.
Nick: Also, Ben, a guy who runs a night at Cargo suggested that we try out for MTV show, ‘A-Cut’ and he recommended us to the producers.
They called us up, we did our bit, got kicked off the show, got our nanosecond of fame and then back to obscurity!
But we had a lot of fun....
Florence: It’s very encouraging that so many people believed in you before you believed in yourselves. People who could see something that you couldn’t yet.
You’ve had many guardian angels.
Nick: Yes! We’ve had so much good advice, so many good people around us.
Kez: On the MTV show there were two judges, Anastacia and a guy called Olivier Behzadi, now ex Sony A&R and even though we got kicked off pretty quickly he asked us to get involved in a tap dance musical he was doing starring Adam Garcia. It’s potentially a huge project and he wanted us to be the band in the show and write music for the show.
 Florence: Tap dance musical! That’s not very Rock’n Roll, is it?
Kez: No no it’s totally left field!
When he first called us we thought: “what the fuck...”
It took a while for it to sink in and then we decided to do it as it’s all about writing and playing and we will remain true to ourselves.
We didn’t sell out and we wrote our usual stuff. We’re also glad of the regular income!
Virgil: They wanted something quite Funky, with quite a contemporary feel and yet it’s tap dancing!
Nick: Basically it’s us playing and them tapping to us!
Florence: I guess it needs to be seen to be believed, but is it cool?
Virgil: Surprisingly it’s very cool. Tap dancing is probably the most interesting of dance genre. It’s neither contemporary nor classic. There is no interpretation of the music with arms swinging everywhere... Actually it’s quite hip!
Kez: It’s an art, a skill. When the dancers started appreciating our music we just loved working with them. It was a great experience.
Florence: Tap dancers aside what is the next step for you?
Nick: We would love to play some of the forthcoming festivals but because of the musical due to open in April we find it hard to make any sort of commitment for this year.
We would also love to go to America as I think they would really dig us, and in case any Americans read this: “we love America”.
However we’ve just finished our Ep and that’s to be released very soon.
We need to try and get some radio play.
We’re also working on our album. We’re still writing even though we already have a lot. The Lp will be produced by Steve Howe, Virgil’s dad.
We’ve worked with him before and we totally love it.
Tomorrow we’re going to the studio, in Devon, for a few days, to spend some time with Steve.
Virgil: We also need to do as many gigs as we can.
Everything that’s come our way so far has been through gigging and people enjoying seeing us.
Florence: I love the name ‘The Dirty Feel’, but aren’t you under extra pressure to live up to that name? Don’t groupies expect more?
Virgil: Oh no! It’s quite easy to be dirty!
Actually a friend named us that.
Nick: On hearing the name a lot of people assume that it’s something untoward, but that’s them, not us.
Really the name refers to the heaviness of the music which I think we can maintain, however we can’t change people’s perverted minds.
Florence: Name me some of your musical influences, please.
Virgil: Luckily we have a lot in common and when we jam together we really trust each other’s judgement.
We’re really into late 60s, early 70s. We really like Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zep, Graham Central Station, Sly and the Family Stone....
Nick: Prince has been a huge influence on me and Little Feat.....
Also we can’t forget The Chili Peppers, as a contemporary band and in the way we are. They are a perfect example of how you need to learn to channel energy and power. At the beginning it’s easy to be heavy, out there and crazy and then you slowly learn about songs and the power you have, how to focus that power into songs.
Kez: They have a really powerful groove, very funky and that’s very much what we do.
 Florence: Whose career do you most admire?
Nick: For me Prince again. He is very prolific and has an amazing energy. He is 47 and yet, as seen at the Brits, he totally rocks.
A lot of artists fall off because maybe their type of music doesn’t allow them to put the right amount of energy into it, like, dare I say, some punk music of a certain age just doesn’t wash anymore, but if you’re all about energy and melody then you should be able to keep on it for a while.
I think that Prince has managed that very well. Now he might be doing it for God but he’s doing it with all his heart.
Virgil: Watching my dad and his band [Yes], has taught me that if your heart is in it you can never disappoint the fans.
They’re all over 50 years old and yet they give it 110% every night and that’s a major influence on me. I know it can be done.
Florence: To create a song that will stand the test of time, age like a fine bottle of wine, must be pretty hard?
Virgil: Maybe you need to put a lot of time into it.
Nick: Whenever you create a song you know what inspired you, what made you do it and you need to remember that every time you play that song.
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