Film + TV
Run the Jewels explain their surprise TV On The Radio collaboration
by Sam Sutherland
October 5, 2015
"That audience was turnt. I hope we get to do it again."
When Run the Jewels appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in mid-September, they did so with the surprise addition of TV On The Radio as their backing band. It was extremely good and the internet was very psyched.
But, like… how? TVOTR’s Dave Sitek might be on Meow the Jewels, but dropping some gentle purrs on “Sea Legs” doesn’t compare the way the entire band ripped “Angel Duster.” Run the Jewels offered some details and teased the future before a recent show in Las Vegas.
“I’ve known them for years,” explains El-P backstage at the Life is Beautiful festival. “I’m good friends with those guys. We just thought it would be a dope performance. We’re just fans.”
“The challenge is how to make it special,” Killer Mike elaborates. “I think that took it over the top. It was an energy that felt like when you’re young and in a little black church and someone gets the holy ghost and you’re just like, ‘Ah what is that.'”
“I know exactly what you mean,” chimes in El-P, laughing.
“If you never went, you don’t got to be black to go to small black church on Sunday morning. They usually have a dope rhythm section. It felt like that on stage that night. A lot of time, you do TV and it feels very sanitised. The set is cold, the audience is aware – or not – of you. But that audience was turnt. It was live. I hope we get to do it again.”
“We might,” adds El-P. “We might.”
Relive, then go to church.
