by yours truly

(We sometimes like to ask peops we interview if they mind doing some kind of self portrait of themselves. The Egyptian Hip Hop boys were knee-deep in mini tour when I hit them up, so unfortunately didn't have time to oblige us. So I took it upon myself to draw a portrait of them instead.)

Egytian Hip Hop consists of Nick Delap (guitar, bass), Alex Pierce (drums, keyboards, backing vocals), Alexander Hewett (vocals, keyboards, bass), Louis Stevenson Miller (guitar, bass, backing vocals).

Lots of people are talking about them but no one really seems to be actually saying all that much; besides the usual huff about a burgeoning career, how young they are, that they're from Manchester (and all that goes with that), and of course, the name. This is all probably due to the fact that they've only released a couple of tracks, done a handful of gigs, and floated a few crusty but golden potential filled demos onto the interwebs.

And it's this foetal promise of rad-ness that has people talking. The industrial machine that is the London music scene constantly banks incredibly early in the hope and anticipation of polishing up a diamond rather than a turd. So, for me, just like it seems to be with most everyone else, it's just too early to really tell. The four of them undeniably have talent, and almost just as importantly, drive. But it's kinda like going to Hogwarts and putting on the Sorting Hat in an attempt to divine whether you're going to be a noble brave hero in Gryffindor or an ambitious and powerful but ultimately evil Slytherin, before someone has even told you that "Yer a wizard Harry!"

Contrary to how they come across in most interviews I've read, the foursome seem to me a super focused lot; having had a musical history of at least post-it note-worthiness already at their ripe, post pubescent age of seventeenish. They're obviously music driven and focussed, yet they all seem to be a nicely shambolic and happy seventeenish still. Late of the Pier's Sam Eastgate has a little bro the same age as the EHH guys, which is how they met. Eastgate's touch on production is very evident, but for now it sits just fine whilst the boys keep developing and growing into themselves.

The promise of Egyptian Hip Hop is indisputable, but like most everyone else, I can't quite get a grip on where they're going musically - for sure though is that they're going somewhere. I mean, check it: a 12 minute long jam in 'Nifeo', shitloads of NME gush, a Modernaire remix, darkly sweet pop in blog fave 'Rad Pitt' and 'Heavenly' (from their freshly released AA side single, out now), Sam Eastgate pulling production duties, most of them dabbling in other projects and doing remixes themselves - the possibilities are endless. So I reckon however they go, they'll fang a Harry Potter...no matter which house they get sorted into in the end, they're natural born wizards and will end up on top.

Hi hello, which band member would we be speaking to?

Al P the monster.

How's tour? Are people buying into your brainfruits so far?

It's been pretty eventful with a few non eventful moments. Hewett wrote this blog about it. It's a rockin' read and it pretty much explains the eventful moments. Our brainfruits have actually sold out too, so we're printing some more right now but I dunno the materials are expensive so maybe we'll just stop printing them for a while. We'll see.

What do you all do at college?

I do art, music tech A levels and the other dudes do some music Btech things. They all are totally bad.

Do you think music is a long term thing for all of you guys? Where exactly are you hoping to go with all this?

I will always be in music, and I'm pretty sure the others will too. We're not taking this lightly, though we may sometimes give that impression. We're hoping to not be one of those bands that flops after a year, without naming any names uhhuh uhhuh.

Where do you think you'll be in 5 years time?

Somewhere beginning with T, somewhere round, somewhere red, somewhere with bright boxes covering all the plants so the plants can't see.

And if you're not doing music, what will you be doing?

Sound making or like, tune crafting.

Who are you listening to right now?

I am listening to a lot of Julian Lynch and Mark Mcguire and I was listening to ghost sounds earlier - like, recordings of ghosts. I think the others are diggin the new Knife stuff and we've had Four Tet's new album on in the van. It's been a pretty good day.

Choose: Kanye or Taylor?

Taylor because she's female.

Beyonce or Gaga?

Beyonce because she's female.

Ho ho! Well didn't that just make me snicker? So what happened to the band that Alexander and Nick used to be in, Copycats? And what made you guys start up EHH?

Copycats' other member, Jake, was going to uni and we'd already started writing some songs as EHH so it was natural that Nick would join us. Nothing made us start EHH. EHH found us.

Why do you think people are talking about you? What is it about you guys and your music that is interesting/cool/different/good/?

I think it has a lot to do with the name. We don't know really. We still can't really understand what it is people like about us. We write our stuff and people dig it. There's not a huge amount of consideration towards this side of things.

I hope you guys get tshirts soon. I really want one that says Egyptian Hip Hop.

Cheers mon.