The Salmonellas' intestinal fortitude

This week Salmonella Dub unveiled their new album. GRAHAM REID caught up for a chat on a slow afternoon.

This was never going to be an "I ask-you answer" type of interview with Salmonella Dub. The previous night they'd done their sound system alter-ego at a club and the person on this side of the tape recorder generally misbehaved, danced like a monkey on a hot plate, then there was something about a cab home and a gutter.

At the time I was walking into the office around 9 the next morning, the DJ dubbers were packing up their albums and blinking into the daylight.

So a mere five hours later Tiki Taane is sprawled across the couch at the record company offices and an alarmingly alert-looking Andrew Penman is handling cellphone calls.

They're already halfway through an afternoon of interviews in which the same questions come up, says Taane, with a forgiving smile beneath his beanie: "How did you get the name? What do people think of you overseas?"

A sense of torpor settles on the room as they prepare to go through the motions again. So to save them from repeating themselves, we embark on a free-ranging conversation about reggae and music and life in general.

Of course information seeps through about their activities in the past year and their new Inside the Dub Plates album.

By now it's common knowledge they were unhappy with Dub Plates' predecessor, 99's hugely successful Killervision, which sprung the hit single For the Love Of It.

Being produced by the UK's David Harrow meant they felt a loss of control and a sense of haste. It was recorded in a fortnight.

Penman says they came to dislike some of the album and seriously considered not releasing it. After they did they rapidly dropped many of its songs from their live sets.

What is also known is their Outdoor Styles shows of last summer - a gruelling 26 dates with guests including Pitch Black and King Kapisi - sent them back to the bank manager.

Road weariness and a poor financial return after their efforts in Europe, Australia three times, then around New Zealand meant they seriously considered calling the game off and heading for an early shower.

But after some r'n'r back home in Christchurch the Dub-bug bit again - and so Inside the Dub Plates was born. And they're delighted with it.

It is heavier and darker than Killervision and, crucially, they feel it better represents their live shows, which is where they made their reputation.

By having old friend Paddy Free of Pitch Black produce it they not only retained more creative control but could stop and consider the sounds as the work progressed.

They are also re-invigorated enough to do the touring thing again, and later this year head back to France to capitalise on interest generated there after shows in Paris.

They also have dates in Belgium and Amsterdam ("the mad cyclists on mushrooms, every cafe playing Bob Marley and Black Uhuru," Penman recalls from a holiday there previously) where the album is also being released.

"We've got quite a few shows in France," he says. "They've had noise problems in Paris so a lot of clubs have shifted to barges on the Seine. Last time we played a barge, which was like a steel tub really, but held about 300 to 350 people. It's hard case because the boat starts shaking and moving.

"We've got a profile there because we also did a festival at Reims and played just before Photek. We scored a really high-profile TV show on Canal Plus, the week before Madonna had been on and Robbie Williams was the week after, an audience of two million."

They had immediate feedback by e-mails in fractured and polite English, and from the world's best-known Jewish, Cambridge graduate, gangsta.

"We got one from Ali G but I didn't know who he was at the time," says Penman, "and so sent him a really bolshie one back. He'd got a copy of [our] Drunken Monkey album from a mate in Aussie and liked it.

"He finished the e-mail with, 'I'm off to spank me monkey with me Julie'. I didn't find out who he was until about three or four months later."

And so the conversation rolls around to current listening (lots of roots reggae, the new Dillinger album given the thumbs up) and the recent Rebel Music doco about Bob Marley and how he would feed people who turned up to his house at 56 Hope Rd in Jamaica.

There is a general murmur of admiration for Brother Bob and acknowledgment of charisma. Che Fu, says Taane, has something similar, you can just feel it around him and Lee "Scratch" Perry whom Taane met on his tour here.

"I was jamming in a room, he came in and just went, 'Whoah' and stared at my tatts. He had a little bell and went to every corner in the room, muttered some things and jangled the bell. Very strange."

The talk turns to their DJ shows and how there is still some confusion about it. People don't get the sound system not playing dub.

"But I can't be bothered worrying about it any more if people can't work it out," says Penman. "It's great and fun for us, and takes it in another direction. There's not many nights you can go out and get a cross section of dub, reggae, and drum'n'bass."

And so the chat inevitably spins towards their forthcoming show on Friday at the Westend. It's a big night in the city, what with Dimmer, Sola Rosa and SJD playing across town at the Powerstation.

"But we're timing our shows quite late and bringing out Bunyip and Shapeshifter. We'll go on about 1.30 am, that's the trick, so people can see everyone," says Penman. "Sometimes there's not a lot of reason to go out - but if there are several shows in a city, the town just fills up."

* Salmonella Dub, Bunyip, Shapeshifter play the Westend, St James Theatre, Friday August 24. Inside the Dub Plates is out now.