Ed Flis, A.K.A. Duran Duran Duran has been releasing music on various European labels since 2002. He’s famous for his sexual ambiguity and being the ‘Ball Gag Guy’, but most of all for the crushing music he creates. Don't Panic went to interview him on Brighton Pier the morning after the biggest earthquake in Britain for the last two decades. We wanted to know if he had anything to do with it.



Us late, him at the pier

In an attempt to be punctual, we arrived at Brighton Pier a few minutes before DDD’s e.t.a, only to find that he’d turned up an hour before us. He was still on Berlin time, his new home since he relocated from Philadelphia. We decided to take a stroll along the promenade, smoke fags and chat up some old ladies…



Ed tried to finds some buddies to have a go on the bumper-cars with him

Don't Panic: We’re really looking forward to your set tonight. What's it going to be like?!

Duran Duran Duran: I'm probably gonna start with some Old school Rave shit. I'm kinda into that but I think it only works in England. I can't believe they got all of these people to play on a Wednesday night… it’s amazing!

DP: Immense! You’ll see us down the front screaming like teenyboppers!  We’ve been checking out the Bang Face weekender in April which looks fantastic. Are you playing?

DDD: Unfortunately no. We played there a few years ago and they kept harassing us about not smoking back stage so we had to sneak fags into the bathroom like at High School. They were like ‘you can't smoke in here’ and meanwhile there’s groups of people laying out huge lines of K... I was like, ‘WHAT THE FUCK! THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!’


DDD fishes for change

DP: Which crowd goes more mental… Europe or America?

DDD: I guess I'd say Europe. Brussels in particular. They're really fucking crazy, like sometimes they'll fight. A guy at the bar told me there was a knife fight. There was blood outside the bathroom door…

DP: What were you playing to get the crowd so wound up?

DDD: Breakcore! I wanted to play some slower stuff like Bootycore but when it’s 400 BPM the whole night, you can't just stop.

DP: Talking of slower stuff, what's your favourite Madonna song?

DDD: I really dig the acapella version of Like a Prayer. It's really fucking weird.



Mushy peas are basically English sauerkraut

DP: It’s hilarious how difficult it is to find you on the internet, but when I finally got pictures of you, you were wearing a ball gag! What’s that all about?!

DDD: I wore one when I played a gig in Vienna. For some reason it was really easy to find a ball gag at eight in the morning. People keep expecting it now, but I don't wanna be known or remembered as ‘the ball gag guy’! The problem is you end up salivating out of the side of your mouth, and you end up looking like a spaz… It’s also impossible to drink. You just end up pouring it all over your face!

DP: Tell us about your musical influences.

DDD: I grew up listening to a lot of heavy metal. Then I really got into industrial music; Ministry, Godflesh you know? Each area of music flowed into the next. Now I listen to hip hop and mainstream stuff like Tupac… as well as Maria Carey, and Happy Hardcore. Like all the worst music, that pretty much defines my taste!





Duran Duran Duran may be into bad music but we didn't want him to leave with a bad taste in his mouth. So we took him down the local chippy for a battered feast of fish and an English delicacy - mushy peas. I’m sure this improved his gig that night at the Volks, because the Wrong Music night was fantastic. Everybody was moshing like Sid and Nancy and we narrowly missed a fight!

Photography by Sam Hiscox.


Check out Ed’s tunes at his Last.fm
 
Or you can download TWO COMPLETELY FREE tracks here and here.