Interview: Mean Poppa Lean

A high-kicking maelstrom of raw funk power and hot pants, MPL are up for a UK Festival Award.

How did you enjoy your tour with Floors & Walls?
Christian Jennings Barnes: We had an absolute blast. Gravesend was one of the best.
C-Dogg: You wouldn't expect much of a shitty pub in the middle of an industrial estate.
Rob: We turned up and were like 'No, surely, this can't be it,' and then we noticed this little venue on the side – awesome sound system, great stage…
Grills: And they made us dinner!
CJB: They cooked us dinner. And free beer all night. We had a 12-year old kid giving us all beers.
CD: You'd go up and go 'Can I have a beer?' and he's like [cockney accent] 'Alright, I got Sol, Carlsberg, Strongbow.' 'I'll have a Sol please, mate', and he'd say, 'Do you want a glass? [laughter].

Was it a messy one?
CJB: It was disgusting, yeah. A lot of Travelodge debauchery. We've become massive fans of Travelodge.
Becky: Next time we play in Brighton we're gonna stay in the Brighton Travelodge even though we all live here, because it's better than our houses.

A lot of bands want to be taken seriously and look cool – do you think it's easier to be fun?
CJB: We take our music completely seriously, we just don't take ourselves too serious.
CD: We can be having a real shitter; stuck in traffic in a van, and it's all fucked, and everyone hates each other, but, y'know, you just strap on [raucous laughter].
G: That's what happens at Travelodge!
CD: Alright, you put on your hot pants, and your bits and bobs and shit, and it makes it a lot easier, you're in character, you have fun more easily.
BE: It bridges the gap as well, people feel a lot more comfortable, they go 'Oh my god, why are you wearing that, you're so fat' [laughter].
CD: Geezers come up to me and say [geezer voice] 'Alright man, I really enjoyed your set, right, it's all that funky stuff, isn't it, but like why do you need to wear the little pants and all that?’
Bass: 'I can see your cock and balls, mate, and I can see your arse, can't I? I'm not bent or anything, y'know, I like your music, but I'm not gay'
CD: 'What, you're from Brighton? What, are you all benders?' [laughter].

What came first, the rock or the funk?
CJB: It's really the rock for us, Me and C-Dogg came down from Oxford to Brighton to start MPL, we had this idea of a funk-driven rock band, so they kinda came together. Finding the inspiration for it, we originally came from rock; we started listening to Rage Against The Machine when we were much younger, started listening to hip hop, then started making the connection to records, funk and disco and soul records that you already sort of knew. And then from there the net of music you listen to grows wider and wider as you go on, and that led us to stuff like Morris Day & The Time, and Zapp, the 80s kind of thing that we based MPL on really.
CD: Bands who were ostentatious and showy like Parliament, putting on incredible out-of-this-world costumes and putting on these wild shows, and we thought well, there's no real reason why, if we've got the balls, that six white guys can't do that on a budget of nothing.

Mean Poppa Lean play the Hanbury Club, Thursday 10th. Single Sheryl Crow is out now.

WORDS BY TIM LINCOLN