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Ugly Duckling.
 Despite having just endured a twenty-hour flight from California, DJ Young Einstein was in surprisingly high spirits during our interview. "I'm outstanding; well, I'm in Australia, right?" This now their fifth time here, the Ugly Duckling boys love the Australian beaches and warm weather, reminiscent of their hometown of Long Beach, CA. "The people are a bit more relaxed in Australia though. We have a serious traffic problem around LA so people are usually a bit more tense."
As veterans of the West Coast hip-hop scene, Ugly Duckling have just released their third album, 'Bang For The Buck'. It keeps the UD sound alive with party beats, typically UD humour and more horns than you can handle. "We love horns; it's either horns or distorted guitar and guitar can sound a bit too heavy metal so we mainly do horns. James Brown, Kool And The Gang and all our favourite groups used a lot of horns, so that's our thing. I've actually had people come up and say 'Oh! You're that group that uses all the horns!'
"With 'Meat Shake' [their previous album] the guidelines were that it was a high concept album so we wanted to avoid that this time and make a really simple record that you could listen to from start to finish; a solid listen. People just want to be entertained, they don't want to have to sit there and think about a battle between vegetarians and meat eaters; we lost a couple of people on that one."
UD rapper Andy Cooper describes this latest album as having more of a 'cartoon violence' feel, coinciding with UD's trademark cartoon artwork. It turns out that Einstein is not only old skool in terms of his hip-hop following, but he also keeps it real with old skool cartoons. "I like the old Disney cartoons - like Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Donald Duck. Wow, oh boy, if I were a cartoon character I think maybe I'd be Pluto; he doesn't talk much, he's just all expression."
This comparison is quite apt given Einstein's charismatic yet lyrically silent role behind the decks. Perhaps now, 12 years into the band's existence, a Young Einstein rap battle is overdue? "Wow, hmmm, well you're talking to me now so you know that probably wouldn't go so good!" he laughs. "I do have a couple of parts on some records, just a word or two, but I think I know what I'm good at and I'll stick to that."
The first single from 'Bang For The Buck' is Smack!, a punchy, gun-toting dig at America's commercial rappers. "We just did a video for Smack! It was filmed in Southern California and it's really cool. We're making fun of rappers like 50 Cent."
I mentioned the recent MTV awards hosted by none other than P Diddy (or whatever he is now known as) and wondered what Einstein would say in the unlikely invent of UD winning an award. "Oh wow, I don't know, uh, 'Thanks, we must've done something right for a change!'"
As the interview drew to a close, I couldn't help but ask whether Young Einstein had seen, or even heard of, Yahoo Serious' movie of the same name. "I know of it but I've never seen it," he admits. "You know, only a few people have told me about the movie, but not that many people mention it, maybe they're like, 'We'll just act like that never happened...'"
Cassie Hilditch
 | 'Bang For The Buck' is out now through Earshot/Inertia. |
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