We’ve still barely recovered from this year’s Kendal Calling, but meeting English Disco Lovers and hearing them spread their “Don’t Hate, Gyrate!” message makes it all worth it.
Eddie Bye: So we’re here at Kendal Calling with English Disco Lovers. They’ve asked us to protect their anonymity for this interview and our friend [hereon referred to as 'AJ'] is wearing a disco-mask as well. How are you doing mate?
AJ: I’m very good thank you.
EB: What do the letters ‘EDL’ stand for in your eyes? What does it all mean?
AJ: We feel that in the eyes of the British public, EDL means racism, violence, Islamophobia, xenophobia and hatred. We wan’t to change all of that so when people hear ‘EDL’ they think of unity, peace and coming together to have a good time.
EB: So you see yourself as the antidote to the EDL?
AJ: Yeah you could say that!
We also bumped into Seasick Steve!
EB: There’s obviously going to be a lot of strong feelings around the issues you’re taking on, have you encountered any threats?
AJ: Yeah definitely, we get Facebook messages all the time which are quite aggressive, emails and tweets as well, and some generally pretty negative reactions to our campaigns.
EB: And where has your own motivation come from? From politics, or from music?
AJ: We never really expected to be doing festivals or making music to be honest, that’s a bit of a side project. Our main project is to subvert the EDL acronym, to subvert their logo. Everything we do has that political origin. But we also want people to have a good time and playing disco is a great way to do that as well!
EB: Excellent. What do your parents think of it all?
AJ: To be honest I’m kind of from an activist background anyway, so they’re really supportive, they think it’s a good idea and I think they can see the funny side to it.
EB: And where are you going to take it over the next year? Any big upcoming plans?
AJ: Yeah we’re doing a couple of gigs in London, one at Dalston Superstore, and we’re just going to keep spreading the anti-hate disco message.
EB: AJ from the real EDL, thank you very much!
