Circuit Training 69: Abandoman, Still Hatching the Plan

I've been meaning to grab Abandoman for a chat ever since I chanced upon them for the first time in a little tent at the rather lovely Larmer Tree Festival a few years back (they were performing, obviously - I wasn't just peering into people's tents). Aptly enough, that fest is where I finally grabbed them this year, as they awaited a soundcheck just before tearing the main comedy marquee a metaphorical new, er, flap.

Rob Broderick and James Hancox's freestyle hip-hop outfit do seem to have the whole live thing pretty much nailed now - much of Mark Watson's subsequent headline set was spent mock-lambasting them for being famously impossible to follow - but where do the unlikely duo go from here? Well, Montreal for the prestigious Just for Laughs fest, specifically, then an Edinburgh run. But they do also hanker after a more tangible end product.

Let's start, though, with the new Fringe show, Hot Desk, which does beg the question...

How do you actually prepare for an improvised show?

Rob: It seems counter intuitive doesn't it? We sort of sit down and go 'is there a premise? Is there something we can do this year that ties an hour together?' Last year we talked about a trip to the moon being the theme, a fictional narrative, the idea of a ship populated by the audience members, and this year we're creating a fictional world where we're old-school songwriters.

So it's a mix of people coming and hearing the old classics that they love, which obviously haven't been written yet, and also trying to knock out some hits that are statistically likely to be chart hits, playing with the idea that, if you want a chart hit, what's the smartest way to go?

So how do you go about it?

Rob: We kind of break it down into more simplified categories, we're looking for the big features in hip hop and R&B, the classic things that make up the male love song versus the female love song, which is quite interesting. Female break up songs that sell well, usually are big FUs, You're Gonna Hear Me Roar, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Best Thing You Never Had.

Then there's this whole genre of male break up songs that I think are super bullshitty, where the men go 'sorry I had to break up with you, you're really special, sometimes late at night I think about you,' the phone call you make at midnight to a girl you've broken up with: 'I'm sorry I can't be with you but... we should fuck.' While the girl is more like vomiting and her mates are going, 'fuck him Sharon, you're the best thing he's never had.' That's what sells.

I remember when Alanis brought out You Oughta Know - that was the ultimate FU

James: Katy Perry's most recent album, it sounds quite a bit like Alanis Morrissette. Maybe that's what you write when you break up. Raw songs.

Rob: I read a really interesting thing in The Streets, Mike Skinner's book, where he went to the states and wanted to see how hip hop was made out there, and he sat in on a conference meeting with a load of people and T-Pain on Skype...

T-Pain on Skype!

I know, it's really funny, auto-tuning himself. But they very clinically just discussed what T-Pain's next song should be, 'we've just had a song for ladies so now we need a street hit.'

Speaking of big pop stars, didn't you support Ed Sheeran a few years back?

Rob: We did Ed's tour, yeah. We knew him, and a couple of times he stepped in when James wasn't available. He came from the hip-hop scene, so we were introduced to him, we stayed in touch, and he was like 'do you wanna support?' I know Ed likes the show a lot, and I also think there's a smart element. If your fans are in a room, kettled, and they've never heard of the support act, well, stand-ups, we're used to that. Comedy is built to take in the first time observer.

So how did you two get together?

Rob: I was doing stand up and rapping, like a freestyle hip-hop show, which came about from a rap show that I just never learned the words for.

James: I was doing folk music at the time, I was in an anti-folk duo, we tried to style ourselves on [US indie-folkers] Mouldy Peaches, that sort of thing. So we were playing on the same bill, we'd just finished our set, my partner made her way home and then Rob came and went 'want to join me on stage?'

Had you been hovering vulture-like, Rob?

Rob: I was compering, and it wasn't necessarily directed at Jim, it was Jim and Naomi, but Naomi went, so then we jammed.

You aren't an obvious musical mix.

James: Not at all.

Rob: I was always a big fan of guitars. Whenever a rap album had a guitar on it, that was always my favourite track. It's funny, it's a really rhythmic way of playing, but not so much that it goes over where the raps should be. I don't know why but it always works.

Acoustic stuff works as background music pretty well - not that acoustic musicians like that idea

James: It's used as background quite a lot, but it's very versatile, and accessible - keeping it acoustic, it has the vibe of the live night. If you're up there with an electric guitar or with a band it's more serious. But there is the idea that you can just rock up with an acoustic guitar.

What was your first gig together?

Rob: It was really soon after we'd met, I'd rung to get tickets to see [Minnesota rappers] Atmosphere at the Scala. And it turned out the opening act had dropped out, so I said 'I'm in a hip-hop band' and managed to blag the opening spot.

Jim and I, we'd maybe jammed twice, I didn't know James' surname, didn't know where you're from. So we're onstage, and we're truly shitting ourselves. There was a lovely moment where I said 'hello I'm Rob, I'm from Ireland, and this is James, he's from...' there's an awkward pause and I say 'where are you from?' And the crowd did crack up, they thought it was fucking patter but it wasn't, I had no idea.

Did you have much of a long-term plan, then or now?

James: From my point of view, it just started with saying yes that night, joining Rob on stage, without either of us really knowing what the trajectory was. I don't think either of us questioned it for a while.

Rob: No, we like what we do, the shows are fun, but sometimes you do want to go 'and the ambition is this.'

Could you make an album?

James: We've had various thoughts about how we'd capture what we do but it's difficult really. I think the only one we thought about was recording it on the night and handing it to people as they leave.

There are MP3s knocking around - I've got one you clearly did one winter, about not liking snow.

Rob: That was for Chris Hawkins on 6 Music, when we first started out. He'd ring us on a Thursday and give us a song concept, and we'd write it for Friday morning, so it was kind of improvised. But actually it became really annoying. It was the fact that we were given so long to do it, it was torture, we got to press delete and redo, and it didn't take in what we actually do well. You can hear when we naturally do what we do, it sounds more fluid. If you write it down, the written ones would be better, but the natural rhythm of fecking around is better.

Didn't you do kids TV too?

James: Yeah, early on we were the house band for Dick and Dom's Funny Business. It was a great opportunity to see how these things are done, and because we were there for the whole 13 episodes it felt a bit like a day job, which is always a nice thing. It was funny the responses afterwards, we'd have kids on the tube staring, going 'where do I know you from?'

Rob: It was also funny that we'd wake up in a hotel, after doing our weekend gigs, in Hornchurch, say, a bit tired and drunk still, and you'd turn on the telly and there'd be a sparklier version of yourself.

It was fun. After a couple of episodes they just didn't bother rehearsing us, we had a format and knew where it was going. They were generous with us, whereas sometimes with telly you get a feeling of stress, pressure.

This column really came about because of comedians telling me about their TV woes...

Rob: It's an interesting one, I don't think we've had the awful stuff but when people look at us for telly... we need more time than they have to give us. The one thing we do need is the set-up - a lot of people have gone 'we'll skip that bit and just do the song' and we're like, 'no that's what we do.'

We did a thing as the start of this year, a podcast called Freestyle FM, where we chatted to two comics and we'd build four tracks based on songs they were listening to in the charts, and that felt quite nice as a process.

Your process is pretty nice generally, given how many comics are struggling to finish writing their Fringe shows right now.

James: We still rehearse most days, and our writing, a lot of it is in the questions we ask the audience. You're trying to cultivate a response that's going to be interesting.

Rob: And you try not to get boring answers, or the same answers. People say 'do you like it when you get the same suggestions?' but it's hard, because you never nail it like you did the first time.

Does your live show ever not work?

Rob: When there's bad sound, we die on our arses. So we've actually just bought our own little PA.

James: We're also not the kind of band who can take that break and go 'sorry - sound guy, can we sort this out?' because as soon as you do that you're going to break the relationship with the audience. We've had moments where I've tried to gesture to the guy at the back, 'turn up my guitar...' [points at guitar].

Rob: ...and afterwards the guy said, 'mate, I thought you were dancing.'

Abandoman's Hot Desk is at the Underbelly, Bristo Square, from July 30. Listing