Nick Foster, the mastermind behind Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires, talks about his influences and the creative process behind their collaboration with EMF’s James Atkin on new single ‘Cosmic Discotheque’.
‘Cosmic Discotheque’ features the distinctive vocals of James Atkin. How did this collaboration come about?
Nick: I’ve known James since we were teenagers, playing in bands around the Gloucestershire area. We’ve spoken several times about making music together prior to EMF taking off, but never got around to it. However, we’ve kept in contact over the years and when Luke Hadron (programmer / decks) presented me with a skeleton of ‘Cosmic Discotheque’ I immediately thought of James as a potential vocalist. He was happy to have a go, wrote some test lyrics and did a demo vocal over the original idea, which we loved. He then came back a few days later to say he had a few ideas to add to the track, so we sent over the separates and he came back with the version that we’ve put out, which completely blew our minds when we heard it. A lot of people only know James as the ‘singer from EMF’ but he’s always been a fantastic guitarist and brilliant songwriter / producer in his own right. You all need to check out his solo stuff, it’s great.
The sound of Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires is quite diverse and draws from various music movements across the decades. Can you tell us more about your musical influences and how they have shaped your unique sound?
The idea behind the project was to avoid the current algorithm based, ‘for fans of’ type of trap where the streaming platforms create a Echo chamber of what people should listen to. My influences are heavily based around the 60’s, particularly the mid sixties psychedelic, garage punk period where pop songs were starting to become a little deeper with musicians begining to play around with interesting sounds. If you listen to Rubber Soul, Forever Changes, Freak Out or Safe As Milk, there are fantastic pop songs on these LP’s but have been slightly skewed to make them slightly less accessible and I love that. Then there were the garage bands churning out rough classics like ‘I had too much to dream’ or “Psycotic Reaction’. Just brilliant stuff. Luke is a massive Slayer fan but over time has become more engrossed in the more abstract elements of dance /trance like DJ Shadow, Daft Punk, Aphex Twin etc. So I though the combo of our influences could create some really interesting sounds and the rest, as they say, is history.
Your journey in music has seen you transition from playing in indie bands in the 80s and 90s to producing and eventually forming Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires. Can you share some insights into this musical evolution and what led you to this point?
After moving from Gloucester in the late ‘80’s I played the London toilet circuit in a couple of bands (Bull n’ Gate, Mean Fidler, Powehaus etc) for years, gaining some label interest which never realy came to anything. After these bands disappeared into the ether, I started mucking around with a four track in my Cricklewood flat. I would come up with the name of an imaginary band first, then taylor the music to the name (i.e. One Minute Warning involved garage punk songs that lasted under a minute). I then sent these to the Melody Maker’s Demo Hell, where a fair few were published. This gave me the confidence to then start looking at producing my own music which led to ……
You were involved in the early 2000s ‘Bastard Pop/Mash Up’ scene. How did this scene influence your approach to music, and do you think it still has an impact on your work today?
It was an interesting scene, there wasn’t anything like it, blending two or three songs to create a third definitely sparked my imagination. At this point I had just done an Air remix that was featured on the XFM Remix 2 compilation and I started to listened to The Remix with Eddy Temple Morris and James Hymen, where they played a lot of bedroom produced ‘Bastard Pop’ tracks. I loved the fact that it really stuck two fingers up to the music establishment in the same way all my other favourite music scenes had done over the years, so I started frequenting the Bastard club in London and joined the GYBO forum for budding Bastard Pop producers. It was a real help in honing my production skills but most of all, it was a bit of fun and hopefully it’s the fun element that still features on my current work.
‘Cosmic Discotheque’ has been described as a psychedelic, techno, glam stomper. What was the inspiration behind this track, and how did you achieve its unique sound?
Funnily enough it started off much more of a psychedelic, techno track with a bit of a glam intro (think Orbital meets The Sweet). It was really James that took that initial idea and really ran with it, creating a lot of the sonic soundscapes which really fill out the sound.
The artwork for ‘Cosmic Discotheque’ was designed by Gareth Halliday, known for his work with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. How important is visual art in complementing your music, and what can you tell us about the concept behind this artwork?
Gareth has been with us since the second single and is really part of the group. The artwork is extremely important and it’s presence will be more felt when we take this thing out live. Gareth is an extremely talented artist and we see him as the Andy Warhol to our Velvet Underground. We tend to give Gareth an idea of what we are looking for (i.e. a Seventies horror film, or Sci-Fi disco) and he does his Gareth thing and comes up with something utterly fantastic.
Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires is known for blending genres. Can you give us a glimpse into your creative process?
I think both me and Luke start with an idea for a beat emulating a sound we are trying to get, say a classic Motown type thing, then work things from there. We then pass them between ourselves until we end up with the final mix.
Can you share the story behind the name Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires?
Its from a 70’s Hammer / Shaw fims joint production, where they mixed vampires, zombies and kung -fu to mixed results. I love it though and the idea of mixing such diverse fm genres kind of reflect what we are trying to do with our music.
What can we expect from Legends of The Seven Golden Vampires in the near future?
We have a new single our in November and the LP coming out in Feb. We are working on taking ourselves out live between then and are currently working on that.
