FingaThing

PJ: I understood you have mainly been touring in Europe. Have you got plans for the US ?
S: We are planning on touring everywhere. There's a little tour in a pipeline, in September, quite a small little tour, a ten day thing. There's a festival in Central Park in New York, the Giant Steps thing, which hopefully will be the one, not sure if that'll be confirmed. Neither of us has ever been to the States. That's all in the future but I'm sure it will happen.

PJ: What are your influences ?
PP: We started off with different influences. After I moved in to a house which Sneaky lived in, and had 8 people in. We just mixed really easily because we are both quite open-minded. We accepted each other's tastes, and found ourselves getting sucked into each others loves. Sneak's more into jazz, he comes from a jazz and funk base. A lot of music from the 70's, underground stuff, jazz, Latin...
My background is hip-hop, and rock music as well, old fashioned rock, not like Europe or fucking Megadeth or some shit like that. I mean, I've seen al these groups in concert, it's just how I was brought up, taken to concerts and seeing masses and masses of groups. That's how I got into it. Sneaks has a traditional background trough instruments. So obviously he listens to music which is very instrument based, contains a lot of solos, a lot of heavy expression like that but... I was listening to like rock music and stuff which is similar. Its very rebellious, and contains a lot of solos as well. That's why I got into wanting to play something, instead of just being a DJ.
Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Ron Carter, Gil Scott-Heron, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Doggy Fresh, Curtis Mayfield, Invisible Scratch Pickles, Isaac Hayes, er... Transformers, Godzilla, video-games,...
S: soundtrack of films...
PP: any film. we're just heavily into soundtracks. Lalo Shifrin, Ennio Morricone, kung-fu films, mangas, westerns, monster films... anything. Our influences are everything !

PJ: During your show, I couldn't help thinking of the Beastie Boys, especially their recent work with Mix Master Mike...
S: The way the Beastie Boys come across is very raw, and kind of "in your face". it's their characters that pull it off. They've become quite good musicians as well since the first album. Their presence on stage... yeah... I guess...we've never been compared to the Beastie Boys before... it's the same sort of energy I guess.
PP: I would say that it was a compliment. Not many people would call them hip-hop. They're too open minded for that. They are the Beastie Boys. And we wanna be FingaThing. We don't wanna be jazz, definitely. We don't wanna be hip-hop, definitely. We don't wanne be cheesy-soundtrack-club-house-anything. We just want to be FingaThing. So I guess in that respect, we are similar. I saw them last year with [Mix Master] Mike. Well Mike, whaou... The wah-wah and the TV screens. The Beastie Boys have been reinvented — I don't care what anyone says — not trough themselves, it's trough him. Because DJs are extraordinary people, same as musicians. There’s so much going on in the mind, so creative you know... yeah, DJs rock !

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