Self-taught cut and paste artists Cassetteboy have found notoriety online for their blisteringly clever and hilarious video edits skewering politics and pop culture (including infamously Cameron's Conference Rap). Despite remaining anonymous throughout their careers for legal reasons, Cassetteboy have made several live appearances. On Friday the 3rd of June they'll be performing an AV set at Rich Mix as part of Splice Festival, a brand new audio visual performing arts festival. We speak to Mike from Cassetteboy as the duo get ready to take their work to a live stage to ask him about inspiration, isolation and to raise the issue of taking themselves seriously...

Eli Goldstone: What’s involved in translating your work to live audiences for something like Splice Festival?

Mike from Cassetteboy: It’s a lot of work.  We have a lot of material that we keep exclusively for live shows, either because it wouldn’t work so well on YouTube, or just so the audience get to see something exclusive.  We also go back over our back catalogue and pull out our favourite bits – not just our favourite videos, but our favourite individual jokes from those videos.  We try to get those working with a musical backing wherever possible.  So essentially we remix everything we’ve ever done – there will be at least one joke that’s 15 years old, plus stuff that’s never been seen before.

Eli: How seriously do you manage and maintain your anonymity these days?

Mike: We’ve never been serious about anything really.  In the early days we were scared of being sued, so I guess it was more important.  These days we hide our names and faces because it’s fun more than anything, we like dressing up in stupid masks and costumes.  If anyone compromises our anonymity it’s really just spoiling the joke for everyone, rather than something which might have serious legal implications.

Eli: In a lecture you gave you talked about the benefits of being limited by your materials early on in your careers. Faced with the enormity of digital archiving now do you ever feel overwhelmed by potential material for videos?

Mike: That’s always been the case really.  We’ve always had the feeling that if we watch just one more episode of, say The Apprentice, we’ll find a brilliant nob gag that we’d have missed otherwise.  So it’s always been hard to know when our videos are ‘finished’, but you’ve got to walk away sometime, otherwise you’d go crazy.

Eli: Was there a time when you considered using your sampling and compositional skills to make ‘serious’ albums?

Mike: I think some of the music on our albums is brilliant (I say that as the half of the group that didn’t make much of it) so I was always tempted to do a more instrumental album.  In terms of being serious, some of our albums did have serious bits, there’s a lot of anti-war stuff on ‘Dead Horse’ and ‘Carry On Breathing’ is a fairly thorough examination of modern life, as well as having jokes about Martin Luther King appearing on Deal Or No Deal, and England footballers having an orgy.  But I don’t think we’ll be able to resist going for the gag when we spot one.

Eli: How much of the intention behind your videos is mischief making and how much is serious political commentary?

Mike: Well not all of our videos are political, some are just silly.  The political ones contain serious commentary, but they’re broad points, rather than being especially detailed.  So we might point out that the Tories are privatising the NHS under our noses, but we won’t get into the nitty gritty of how they’re doing it.  Hopefully by presenting those points in a funny context, we might reach some people who otherwise wouldn’t bother with politics, but if you get too preachy it turns everyone off.

Eli: Do you miss the old days when you could just make the Two Fat Ladies say ‘pork’ a hundred times?

Mike: Ha! Well we were certainly more experimental in those days, as we didn’t really know what we were doing, so I guess I miss a bit of that.  That piece was edited by hand on cassette desks, so there was a physical thrill to timing the finger on the pause button just right to nail an edit, which you certainly don’t get with computers.

Eli: Who would you be most tempted to make a party political broadcast for?

Mike: If the Two Fat Ladies weren’t dead, maybe them.  But I think our videos work best when we attack people rather than praise them.  If you remember the LibDem’s awful video where they made Nick Clegg sing Uptown Funk, you’ll know how badly a positive video can go wrong.

Eli: After your news mashups for the Guardian in 2015 do you have any other collaborations lined up?

Mike: Not at the moment, but we’d like to.  It can get lonely editing in your bedroom day after day, so we’d love to be able to tackle a bigger project and work with other writers, film makers, animators and so on.  Maybe one day.

Eli: What are your tips for who else to look out for during Splice Festival?

Mike: I don’t know!  We’re quite out of touch with this whole scene, so we’re looking forward to seeing other people ourselves, and seeing where we’ve been going wrong!

@cassetteboy

Splice Festival

3rd-5th June, Various Venues

photos by Andy Parsons