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The Bird
 Ben Walsh seems to have his fingers stuck in a range of drum-related pies at the moment, with the alternative circus-come-dance party performance Tom Tom Club just firing up, as well as his and keyboardist Simon Durrington's long-running live drum an dbass group The Bird going from strength to strength, supporting the likes of Kosheen and Mad Professor and playing numerous festivals across the country. In a scene almost completely dominated by DJs or guys pressing buttons on samplers and sequencers, The Bird stand out as a fusion of full-on live performance and uncompromised drum and bass, jungle and dub. Despite the group being the black sheep of the drum and bass scene, drummer Walsh doesn't think DJs can necessarily do anything The Bird can't.
"Even when Simon and I were just a two-piece, we would find that the clubs we would play in just couldn't accommodate even mics, at least no more than one mic for the DJ console. So we have forged our own path, because the band scene wouldn't accept it and the DJ scene wouldn't accept us. I think we're really on to that fusion and making it really incredible for the audience on a visual level, on a performance level, but we're also providing very progressive dance music. It's difficult for us. It's DJ dominated and it's also electronically dominated."
Unlike a rock show, or a hip-hop gig, electronic music nights aren't about the individual songs as much as the overall feel of the music, as well as it being constant and uninterrupted. It is, after all, dance music and it's easier (and more fun) to dance to a great long stream of music than interrupted four- or five-minute songs. Subsequently, two DJs could play the same tracks and make different sets out of it, but The Bird don't have a DJ and are seemingly caught in the middle of these two camps.
"We never ever play the same tune twice, we couldn't do it, it's impossible," Walsh insists. "It's like trying to play the same set twice. It's very improvised and we read off the audience. We've thrown set lists out the window by the time of the second song, because we've realised the audience wants us to keep playing, for example, jungle. Or they really like dub. You may hit a festival and be on at two in the morning, everyone's been partying all day in the boiling hot sun and you've prepared this huge drum and bass set but everyone's tired. So you can either do what you do or you can try to connect into that moment with the audience. Sometimes you'll make things up just on the spot and that's a skill of the band. Everyone's a ridiculously proficient musician and we can do that and we know we're not suddenly going to go into free jazz or rock, we're going to keep it in the genres that The Bird like to play."
Talking to Ben Walsh, it soon becomes apparent that he's not the kind of musician who gets stuck up on pigeonholes or genre classifications. Throughout our chat he says that "There's no right or wrong" at least three or four times and it's difficult to disagree with him really. Music is music and whether it's made on a computer or by a live band should be of no consequence if it sounds good.
"I think if you only limit yourself to one thing, then it's essentially limiting. Electronic music is made in so many different ways, there are so many different programs, platforms and approaches, none of them are correct, that's right or that's wrong. It's all individual. I think the important thing to remember is it's ever-changing. You can't ever say there's one way to do anything, it's people's processes that make it exciting.
"I program all the time, I make sequenced beats from my single drum hits. I love sequenced rhythm, I think most drummers would love to be able to play what a computer can play, so perfect and inhuman, and I think at the same time when people try and program what a human drummer can do they're never going to get the feeling. You can get close. But I'm not a purist either way - there's no right or wrong and I let my ears tell me whether I like it or not."
The Bird play at the Garden Of Unearthly Delights as part of the Fringe Festival on Fri 16 March
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