Steed Lord Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Mar 10th 2010 1:30PM by Farah Ishaq
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Claiming to hail from 'New Crack City' rather than the more accurate Reykjavik in Iceland, Steed Lord are certainly no Sigur Ros or Seabear. An electro-crunk three-piece whose members go by the names Demo, Kali and M.E.G.A, the gangsta rap and classical music inspired band are set to bring their raucous live show to SXSW next week, hitting up four venues. A double disc 'Remix Project' version of the band's 2009 debut 'The Truth Serum' has just been released. Spinner spoke to a very sleepy M.E.G.A, the band's programmer and producer, in Los Angeles.

Could you describe your sound in your own words.

Electronic dance music from Iceland.

How did your band form?

We formed in 2006, we had all been working on separate music projects before. It's a close family project, my brother and my girlfriend are in the band. It was not planned, it just came about after we put a song on MySpace. It's just evolved into this bigger thing.

What are your musical influences?

So so many -- classical music, pop music, everything ... The biggest influences might be Prince, obviously Michael Jackson. Early rave music from the UK, the Prodigy, Altern-8. Gangsta rap from the States. All of Quincy Jones' work, all of the stuff he worked on with Michael and we love Stevie Wonder. Ever since we were kids we've been big music fans, our parents have always been into music and it rubbed off on us.

How did you come up with your band name?

Me and my girlfriend have a Persian cat, his name is Elvis -- he always poses like a royal steed, like a horse, so we always used to call him a 'steed lord.' During the time when the band came about, we were driving around Reykjavik in Iceland looking for a band name and thought, why don't we just call it Steed Lord like we call the cat? It's still correct English, but to us it's just the old cat.

What's your biggest vice?

What are we addicted to? Stories, music, good food, friends, swimming pools in Iceland, sauna and Persian cats.

Beatles or Stones?

The Rolling Stones -- we're not big Beatles fans, but we respect the work of John Lennon.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

People running up on stage half-naked. Once our singer got a Zippo lighter thrown at his head, that was not a fun moment. We've almost got locked up before too. Our show is pretty hardcore at times, the crowd can get quite rowdy.