Valentine’s day

Fire in the Disco. Fire at the gates of hell. Freak hits are seldom as big, dumb and beautiful as the Electric Six debut on XL, ‘Danger! High Voltage.’ This deranged slice of disco pop spectacularly gatecrashed the slow UK January charts at number 2, pipped to the post by Girls Aloud.

“We’re not even number 2 in suburban Detroit,” guffaws the deep-voiced, wonderfully named Dick Valentine. “We never envisaged this happening at all. People ask us all the time were we disappointed that we didn’t go to number one. That’s a really silly question.”

This goofball anthem was originally released under the name The Wildbunch and first rose to notoriety on last year’s seminal Soulwax compilation 2 Many DJs. “That got the word out there in an underground capacity,” Dick concurs. “When we signed to XL it became necessary to change our name.” Coincidentally, in the late eighties a Bristol based hip-hop collective also called The Wildbunch were forced to change their name to Massive Attack.

But while the newly monikered five piece might seem to have one hit wonder written all over them, they’ve been at it a while. “We’ve been around for about five years. We released an album of sorts called Rock Empire but we only pressed 500 copies of it. I don’t even have a copy of it myself. It’s funny, because a friend of mine got her car broken into in Washington DC and there was a whole bunch of CDs in there so they stole every CD and left just a copy of Rock Empire behind. Oh well, at least I know where one of them is.”

One of the urban myths surrounding ‘Danger! High Voltage’ is that it featured Jack White on backing vocals when in reality, it is a totally convincing sound alike. “We only had breakfast with him,” answers Valentine mischievously. “The guy on the track just won a contest on our website, but he has been confused with Jack White. A couple of guys in the band know him though. I know Meg. You’re either a Jack person or a Meg person. Actually, I’m both. I listen to some of the White Stripes and I think he (Jack) has got a deeper voice. I haven’t talked to the guy who did it, because what happened is not only did he win the chance to be on one of our songs but he also won a night out with the Wildbunch. The problem is we were all set to take him out and then realised we were all broke so we stuck him with the bill, so I don’t think he wants anything to do with us. I don’t think he knows that it’s become a number two record. We’d like to keep it that way.”

And the confusion doesn’t stop there. Electric Six also claimed that the saxophone solo near the end of the song (which happens to be awful) was blown by none other than former President Bill Clinton. “We said that to try and boost sales,” Dick says. “It is played by Jim Diamond who recorded those tracks at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit. We were putting the thing together and said, “Yo Jim! If you put on some sax this song might have a real urban feel,” and he said, “Yeah, it might!” The guy is capable of doing anything.”

The Detroit piss-takers will follow up their breakthrough single with ‘Gay Bar’ in mid-May, which already sounds just as gloriously stupid. “It’s a 180 about turn from ‘Danger! High Voltage’,” claims Valentine, only to immediately contradict himself. “Its kinda like a surf punk guitar riff with nonsensical lyrics and it’s a little over two minutes long with the same riff over and over again. It doesn’t really go anywhere or say anything. If you try and think about it too much it’s probably not a good idea.”

One is beginning to suspect that Dick Valentine and his wild bunch will follow their dumb pop instincts regardless of impending war, international recession and deeply uncertain times. “Oh yeah, that’s exactly where I’m coming from,” he agrees. “Music is sometimes taken way too seriously. It’s just something to do. As a job it’s probably better than working in a cube but I think there are probably better jobs than this. At the end of the day, it’s just music. Taking it too seriously can actually inhibit you as a songwriter. You can spend hours and days obsessing over something whereas if you don’t think about it too much you can just spit it out and throw it up against the wall and come up with more stuff.”

Although details have yet to be officially confirmed, Electric Six are scheduled to play in Ireland shortly. “I’ve never been to Ireland,” Dick reveals. “We were in Paris for lingerie week because we have an agent who works in those circles. We had the pleasure of having dinner with some fashion people and models and that sort of thing. We heard that Bono was flying a whole bunch of models to Dublin for a party. He saves Africa one week and then he flies models to Dublin! That’s just something else.”