3. Extremely Sloppy Productions (ESP)

Who is Extremely Sloppy Productions (ESP)?

In June 2024, I was checking out the piano donated by The Piano (Channel 4's TV programme) and I saw this young man playing. I was fascinated by his flair on the keys and wanted to know more. In this episode we discover how ESP has only had one month's worth of piano lessons, how he won a tenner in Battle of the Bands after playing despite an injured wrist, and how he's earnt the reputation of "the music guy" amongst his schoolfriends.

You can check out ESP's music on YouTube here (youtube.com/@extremelysloppyproductions), and on SoundCloud here (on.soundcloud.com/ngfFY).

Transcript

In June 2024, I was checking out the piano donated by The Piano (Channel 4's TV programme) and I saw this young man playing. I was fascinated by his flair on the keys and wanted to know more. In this episode we discover how ESP has only had one month's worth of piano lessons, how he won a tenner in Battle of the Bands after playing despite an injured wrist, and how he's earnt the reputation of "the music guy" amongst his schoolfriends.

You can check out ESP's music on YouTube here (youtube.com/@extremelysloppyproductions), and on SoundCloud here (on.soundcloud.com/ngfFY).

TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE FOLLOWS >>>

Hello and welcome to the Street Pianist, a celebration of all the wonderful musicians who play street piano, even when nobody's listening.

[00:00:16] Clare: Hello. 

[00:00:22] ESP: You alright? 

[00:00:23] Clare: So I am here with Extremely Sloppy Productions. Which I'm not going to keep saying that all the way through. I'm going to shorten it to ESP. But I met this young guy yesterday when I was here at Piccadilly Station and I was looking at the piano that was put here by The Piano, the TV show and I saw this young man play and I was very impressed.

And I'm not even going to try to describe what I heard because I'm going to get him to describe it for us. And I've just recorded him just now playing something, so tell us what that was. 

[00:00:49] ESP: The song that you would have just heard would be a cover of a song called Front Street by Will Wood and the Tapeworms, one of my favorite bands, spearheaded by one of my favorite singers, Will Wood.

It's swing ragtime ish, but it's also got some rock elements in it as well. 

[00:01:05] Clare: Yeah, I noticed it was quite a mix, which I really like. I like when, you've got multiple genres going on. Also, that's a great name, the Tapeworms. 

[00:01:13] ESP: Yeah, obviously piano isn't going to do the song very much justice, especially with the percussion, but yeah. 

[00:01:19] Clare: Do you have a preference for genres? 

[00:01:21] ESP: No, I just if I will go over to the piano, I'll go duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, and then music will come out and I find it's often good. As opposed to like preference for listening genres rather than playing or 

writing, yeah, my taste in music is rather eclectic I'd imagine. 

[00:01:38] Clare: Yeah. And so I'm interested because you said that the song that you were playing is a song that's already been written by somebody else. 

[00:01:44] ESP: Yes. 

[00:01:44] Clare: But I think when I met you yesterday you said something about how you like to create your own arrangements so you don't play it straight exactly how it was by the original artist.

[00:01:53] ESP: No, yeah, and even that arrangement that I just played at Front Street that was by ear, yeah. 

[00:01:57] Clare: And while you were playing it, there was a whole load of interesting stuff going on. You were moving around the piano. There was a bit of stuff at the top end, there was a bit of stuff at the bottom.

How do you decide what to do next? 

[00:02:09] ESP: If it's cool, I'll do it. If it's funny, if I just decide, oh, it might be good to add some gooder. It might be good to add some harmonies over here. Often to juxtapose a very low frequency in the left hand. With like the sharp tones of the highest octaves you would have heard earlier.

I find that can often go well. 

[00:02:28] Clare: Yeah. And have you ever had piano lessons? 

[00:02:31] ESP: I had them weekly for about a month. A couple of years ago, and then the piano teacher actually resigned from teaching me because apparently I was improving at too rapid a rate for him to properly teach me. His words, not mine.

And that's probably the biggest flex I could ever, I actually have. 

[00:02:48] Clare: That's pretty cool. 

[00:02:49] ESP: For the piano? 

[00:02:49] Clare: Yeah. And so it's interesting, because the reason I asked that was because I noticed that you've got some of the stuff you do is obviously jazzy, There's obviously things in there that you might recognise from other forms of music.

So I wondered if you have deliberately learnt particular ways of playing, or if you've just picked it up. 

It was a couple of years ago, and as we all know what happened a couple of years ago, the entire world had a big closed sign on it. And I was really bored one day.

Yeah. 

[00:03:18] ESP: And so I started learning piano, and now i'm here. 

[00:03:21] Clare: So it's only been a couple of years that you've been playing? 

[00:03:26] ESP: I know I wouldn't know because what I thought was one year ago is now four. 

[00:03:30] Clare: Yes. So we are now in 2024 was 2020, 2020 that the first lockdown happened. And was that when it was that you started playing?

[00:03:41] ESP: I think it was, yeah, 2020, 2021. 

[00:03:44] Clare: Yeah. But that's still not a very long time. Particularly not to an old person like me. It might seem a bit longer to you, but it's not a very long time.

[00:03:51] ESP: It doesn't really.

[00:03:52] Clare: So you said that so lockdown happened as we all know. You decided to start playing piano.

Did you have a piano in the house? 

[00:03:59] ESP: I had this When I was about, maybe six years old, I got a tiny little. Shitty keyboard for my birthday and I, I had not used it up until then. I just decided, oh yeah, this thing exists and I started playing it. 

[00:04:12] Clare: Was it one of those ones that hasn't got very many octaves?

[00:04:14] ESP: No. 

[00:04:15] Clare: How many octaves did it have? 

[00:04:16] ESP: About four. 

[00:04:17] Clare: And are you still playing that one or did you manage to get a new one? 

[00:04:20] ESP: Oh absolutely not, that's awful. Yes, I did get a better one. It's got 88 weighted keys. It's got a pedal and everything. It's beautiful. I love it. 

[00:04:31] Clare: Oh, that's good. So how long did it take before you were like, hang on, this is not good enough.

I need something better. 

[00:04:38] ESP: A short while. I'd say maybe quite a few months, maybe like a year. I don't remember exactly. 

[00:04:43] Clare: And was it, did you ask for one or did your parents kind of spot that you needed something better? 

[00:04:49] ESP: I asked for one, yes. 

Not this one now. 

This one I got was about like a few days ago. 

[00:04:55] Clare: Oh, so you got a brand new one really recently? 

[00:04:57] ESP: Yeah. 

[00:04:59] Clare: Ah. Okay, so obviously this is a podcast about street pianists. And that's how I found you, because you were playing street piano. How often do you play street piano?

[00:05:08] ESP: Whenever I'm here. If there's a piano anywhere, I'll just, play it. It's fun. 

[00:05:12] Clare: Yeah. 

[00:05:13] ESP: Most of what I do is in my bedroom. I will either go over to my piano play a few notes until I find a good, set of chords or whatever. Then transpose it to my laptop where I use this program called FL Studio.

But most often I will just crack open FL Studio, just write down a song, and then I will, end result after a few hours, maybe days, you'll hear a song something like this. 

[Extract of ESP’s song “Ladywife”]

[00:06:28] ESP: No. It's really strange because most of my good songs, I have this album coming out later called ESP's Radio Rodeo, and I have, this thing where I'll say, oh yeah, I'm a musician, but then I remembered I've made . The songs I've made outside of this album were like a few years ago.

And even like with this album, there are a few years ago. So I'm like a really awful from what people can actually hear because this album is all still in production. For if you were to go onto my YouTube channel or my Soundcloud or whatever, you just find garbage because all my good stuff is not public.

And so it's strange when I just say, Oh yeah, I'm a musician. What is this? I'm like, wait, hold on. 

[00:07:04] Clare: There's something better coming. It's in production. Yes. So you said that like you might start on the piano and then you might go over to the laptop. 

[00:07:11] ESP: Yeah. 

[00:07:11] Clare: And you talked about songs.

So do your songs have lyrics? 

[00:07:15] ESP: I write mostly instrumental music. I've never written a lyric, lyrical song yet. I have songs that I plan to have lyrics for, but I'm really lazy and will often procrastinate making lyrics. But I'll start a few notes if I'm in the shower, home alone. 

[00:07:31] Clare: So when you said that you might be on the keyboard or you might be on the laptop, do you have a MIDI input or something where you can record the keyboard directly into the recording software, or do you sequence it?

[00:07:41] ESP: I sequence it. I think the new keyboard that I have has got a MIDI input, but I've not used it. 

[00:07:45] Clare: So you're then, you're transferring, and then are you making electronic music? You're making backing tracks? 

[00:07:49] ESP: Yeah, I make a lot of electronica with, again, a lot of different genres. You said about how I play a lot of different genres.

I make more genres. I can, it can be intense and dark. It can be lo fi. It can be quasi classical. It can be yeah, it can be. 

[00:08:04] Clare: So this album that you're making, has it got any live piano music on, or is it all electronic? 

[00:08:09] ESP: I'm, it's gonna be all electronic, but there is this secret sister project that I'm working on for it as well.

And that will have live music, yes. And I will not elaborate more. 

[00:08:22] Clare: Oh. Can I ask you questions that are sideways, like for instance, 

[00:08:25] ESP: Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

[00:08:26] Clare: If you go into a recording studio, or how are you thinking, if it has live music on it, how are you thinking you'll record it?

[00:08:32] ESP: It is just me at the keyboard. 

[00:08:34] Clare: Fantastic. Oh, that's exciting. 

[00:08:36] ESP: There's another album which I'm working on. I'm very bad at planning. 

[00:08:39] Clare: Do you start lots of things and then not quite manage to finish them? 

[00:08:41] ESP: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:08:42] Clare: I do that. 

[00:08:43] ESP: But honestly, it's just this sister project that's holding up the production of the first album.

As soon as I just do that, get the music videos done then record vocals, it's just, it's good. I can yeah, I can just move on. And I've actually written a few more tracks for this other album. And that is going to have a live track. I'm thinking of just going out and doing a gig and then that'll be, that song will be played live.

And that, the only recording will be played live. And that song is going to be called, I am not looking respectfully, in fact I am drooling violently. With all my songs I come up with the titles first, often very stupid titles like that. 

[00:09:16] Clare: Say it again. You're not… 

[00:09:17] ESP: I'm not looking respectfully, in fact I'm drooling violently.

It's just a meme that blew up three years ago and I just thought it was funny. It's not three years ago. Is it three years ago? 

[00:09:28] Clare: No, I'm old and I don't keep up with memes. So was that a meme then that I'm just completely unaware of? 

[00:09:33] ESP: I saw it on Twitter once. It wasn't like a proper viral thing.

[00:09:37] Clare: Yeah. You just like the idea.

[00:09:40] ESP: I like the idea of 

writing joke songs with really stupid titles. 

[00:09:43] Clare: Okay, yeah. 

[00:09:44] ESP: Like I think that has, that's gonna have a sample at the start with, and I'm very sorry for being crude, but the sample at the start is just a guy going, fucking encrusted testicle, my boy, you look like a, and then it's gonna play the song.

[00:09:58] Clare: So you talked about vocals, you said you're going to record vocals, is that going to be you doing the vocals? 

[00:10:02] ESP: Yes it is. 

[00:10:03] Clare: And is it going to be singing, speaking, mixture? 

[00:10:06] ESP: With this new track that I'm, or new album that I'm thinking of the new album is going to be called Dark Side of the Tune, which I thought was quite funny as well.

[00:10:15] Clare: That is a good title, I like that title. 

[00:10:16] ESP: And it's got two songs in it, which are two of my favourite songs that I've written, and I've just written instrumentals for now. But I'm thinking of at least, in the planning stages, I'm going to add more sort of spoken word esque rhyming vocals on top of them.

[00:10:30] Clare: Yeah. 

[00:10:30] ESP: With a telephone effect. 

[00:10:31] Clare: Yeah. Going back to street pianos. 

[00:10:33] ESP: Yeah. 

[00:10:33] Clare: Were you, if, are you one of those people that if you are in public and you see a piano, then you just wanna play it? 

[00:10:39] ESP: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. 

[00:10:40] Clare: Yeah. And do you know why that is? Do you know what you're trying to get out?

Do you want an audience for instance? Or do you just wanna play a piano because there's a piano or…

[00:10:48] ESP: I find playing the piano fun anyway, but often an audience can make that worse. Like when you came over to me earlier. And then like how 20 people just gathered around and started recording me and I'm like, okay, this is gonna make my playing worse now.

It's like the self fulfilling prophecy of or also like anti self fulfilling prophecy of I think this guy's good, I'm gonna record him, which makes it worse. 

[00:11:11] Clare: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I like the idea of the anti self fulfilling prophecy. And unfortunately it happens to me as well.

Similar thing happens if anybody ever points a camera at me. I suddenly don't know what to do with my face. 

[00:11:22] ESP: If I record with this sister project, I'm recording myself at the keyboard and I can play the song fine usually, but it takes 30 takes to get, not even a decent take, to get an awful take.

And I think that's slightly to do with…

[00:11:33] Clare: You know that there's recording equipment there, so the pressure is on. 

[00:11:38] ESP: Not really, I just, I don't know, it's like whenever I would record video games haha I think it would make it worse anyways. 

[00:11:44] Clare: When I'm playing piano at home, So our piano's in our bedroom and I'll be playing really well and then my husband will walk in just because he needs to get something from the room and suddenly I can't play anymore and like it all just completely falls apart and he's not even trying to be an audience but just that the fact that there's somebody there can make it all fall apart for me.

[00:12:04] ESP: See that's the difference and it's if I'm playing and my dad will walk in, oh you need to do your laundry and then I'll play louder to drown him out. 

[00:12:10] Clare: Like, when you're playing when you've played street pianos in the past, have you found that audiences have gathered and people noticed and paid attention?

[00:12:20] ESP: Yeah, they just because I think just seeing someone playing the piano is just cool, and so they will just start recording or just gawk. 

[00:12:30] Clare: Yeah, and do you quite like that, having an audience? 

[00:12:33] ESP: It doesn't make too big of a difference, honestly. 

[00:12:35] Clare: Yeah. So really it's just that there's a piano there and you want to play it.

[00:12:39] ESP: Yeah, it's fun. 

[00:12:40] Clare: Yeah. Do you find yourself, so let's say for instance, let me think of an example, let's say you went out for a meal and there was a piano in the venue, like in the corner of a restaurant. 

[00:12:51] ESP: Yeah 

[00:12:51] Clare: What would your reaction be to that? 

[00:12:53] ESP: Where am I having the meal? 

[00:12:55] Clare: Where are you having the meal? It's a small Italian restaurant, it's not particularly fancy, it's like just a little kind of, there's a few families in there.

[00:13:04] ESP: Okay, I would first absolutely decimate a pizza, then I would go over to the piano and play one of the three songs I know. 

[00:13:12] Clare: And would you find yourself, because I guess this is a leading question, but what I'm wondering is, would you find yourself distracted by the presence of a piano? You'd know it was there and you'd be like, but I want to play it.

[00:13:22] ESP: Absolutely. I when we have like large school assemblies, they often get the bands at the front, like the, brass section of the school orchestra or whatever. I never joined a school orchestra, I did for a bit and then I just stopped because it wasn't my, it wasn't my style. I'd just be like, I really want to play that piano over there at the front of a, like 30 metres away in a hall.

I want to play it. 

[00:13:44] Clare: Yeah. And have you found it, have you played at school at all? Have you like been to any school concerts or anything? 

[00:13:49] ESP: Yeah, I did battle the bands every time the past, when I have been able to. Last year, and I guess this has a bit of a story to it, so I guess slightly, slight trigger warning for violence, I was just out for a walk where long story short, I think I met the wrong kind of people and I got beaten the hell out of. and one of the side effects of that, not a side effect, one of the results of that, which was my wrist was messed up. It wasn't broken, it was just messed up.

And I remembered in that time, it was about five days later, there was Battle of the Bands on and I, I mainly play piano, I dabble in, drums and bass. 

[00:14:29] Clare: Yeah, just slight aside, are you a solo act in Battle of the Bands? Is it you and the piano or are you with other people? 

[00:14:34] ESP: Last year, no, the year before, I guess I have to say they, my friends joined in and they didn't receive as high praise as I did from the judges.

But I think with a lot of the piano rooms, or a lot of the music rooms in school, there's a piano there, and there's going to be like a wooden frog that you can just click to the beat and there's nothing else. 

[00:14:53] Clare: Yeah. So it's a bit difficult to put a decent band together in those circumstances.

[00:14:57] ESP: Yeah, that doesn't play like guitar or… 

[00:14:59] Clare: Bass. Yeah. So it's you on your piano, one of your friends on frog. 

[00:15:03] ESP: No. He was on a ukulele. 

[00:15:05] Clare: Okay. 

[00:15:05] ESP: And my other friend, there was three. I was on piano, friend was on a ukulele. Other one was playing the snare drum on a whole drum set. It was just the snare drum.

[00:15:15] Clare: Yeah. 

[00:15:15] ESP: Anyway, on this last Battle of the Bands thing, I got beaten the hell out of. My wrist was messed up and I mentioned earlier how I like to procrastinate a lot. So I made no use of the five days I had. On the day, the Battle of the Bands, I, in the half an hour I had I went into one of the piano rooms and wrote a, I think it was like, the original version was like six minutes long of a piano, with only my right hand. Then I went out later, I played it for Battle of the Bands, everyone described how like the room went silent, there was a massive atmosphere. I got an honourable mention, and a tenner. 

[00:15:54] Clare: But, it sounds like when you said, when you're at home, you quite often you just sit down at the piano and see what comes out.

[00:16:00] ESP: Yeah.

[00:16:00] Clare: So you improvise, basically. You know how to make stuff up on the spot. 

[00:16:04] ESP: Sometimes, I often, if I do like a cover, I'll just You know, look up a piano tutorial and just off and get bored and then figure out the rest by ear. But sometimes I'll just, yeah, look up a piano tutorial and 

[00:16:17] Clare: So there's a small element of planning, like this piece that you said you wrote for Battle of the Bands.

You didn't have long. So you did write it. It wasn't like purely improvised, but you wrote it very quickly. So it's like very close to improvisation. You came up with something very quickly. And then, 

[00:16:32] ESP: Yeah. And I'd have said it was improvised at the time. 

[00:16:35] Clare: Yeah. 

[00:16:35] ESP: And then I remembered it. 

[00:16:36] Clare: And when you played it at the actual performance, did you, do you think you played the same thing that you'd written earlier or did you change it a bit in the moment?

[00:16:44] ESP: Wasn't as long. It's about three minutes, which was very good for the audience and me. But yeah, I think it was. Decent enough to warrant a tenner and a placement of my new album ESP's Radio Rodeo coming out on, I don't know, ten years from now.

[00:16:57] Clare: I'm really sorry to hear about you getting beaten up though, that absolutely stinks.

[00:17:02] ESP: No, it's fine. I won about 30 percent of any musician's total net worth in that moment. 

[00:17:11] Clare: No, I don't quite follow. Explain. Because…

[00:17:14] ESP: How do you make a musician's car more aerodynamic? 

[00:17:17] Clare: I don't know. 

[00:17:18] ESP: You remove the pizza sign from off the top. 

[00:17:23] Clare: Oh, I get it, because you've got a tenner, effectively. Yeah, okay, I understand now.

So how does playing piano make you feel? 

[00:17:30] ESP: I bad for messing up. I will often just sit down and if I have a song stuck in my head, I'll just Diddle-iddle-uh is the very technical term for play the piano. 

[00:17:42] Clare: Diddle-iddle-uh. Yeah, that's how we say play the piano. Yeah. Diddle-iddle-uh. 

[00:17:46] ESP: Yeah this is a podcast, so obviously the audience can't see this, but I think it is crucial information to know that I did a spidery hand motion through the air when I said that.

[00:17:54] Clare: You did do a spidery hand motion through the air, and I hope you won't mind me mentioning that you've got rather nice nail varnish on as well. 

[00:18:01] ESP: Oh wow, thank you, 

[00:18:02] Clare: I noticed that when you were playing, obviously, because hands are very noticeable when people are playing pianos. So you've got great nail varnish, you've got some really nice I don't know what to call them.

[00:18:10] ESP: Bracelets? 

[00:18:11] Clare: Bracelets, yeah, bracelets. And what was the other word? There was another word that was in my head that I can't think. Bangles, but they're not bangles because they're stretchy, so they are bracelets.

You like to play piano, but you said that you don't feel good when you mess up. 

[00:18:26] ESP: That was more of a joke than a, yeah.

[00:18:28] Clare: So it doesn't bother you too much? 

[00:18:28] ESP: It's more of a, oh I messed up, let's start again. Or, oh I messed up, let's continue than a, OH GOD! Which admittedly is how it feels when I mess up and it's a crowd.

[00:18:39] Clare: But you do keep going though? 

[00:18:40] ESP: Or when I mess up and I'm filming. But yes I do keep going. 

[00:18:44] Clare: Because that's something that a lot of people find hard and it's actually one of the things you have to learn if you're going to perform in public. Yeah. And I'm not great at it to be honest. It's when you make a mistake.

Just pretend you didn't. Act like that was always supposed to happen and keep going. Because if you stop and correct it, then you make it really obvious. And you also break the flow. But I always want to stop and correct it. 

But it doesn't bother you too much? 

[00:19:09] ESP: No, not really.

[00:19:10] Clare: 

I think the fact that you have the confidence to play street pianos shows that you've got a certain level of confidence when it comes to performing.

[00:19:17] ESP: Or a certain level of obliviousness where I just like, Okay, I'm playing the piano because it's fun, not necessarily because there's people around. 

[00:19:24] Clare: And before you played piano, because you obviously have got a good ear, so did you, and you've already said that you make electronic music as well, so were you making the electronic music before you started playing the piano, or doing anything other than music?

[00:19:37] ESP: I'm so sorry, I just lost my train of thought looking at that pigeon. Yeah, there's a pigeon about a metre away. 

[00:19:41] Clare: There's a pigeon that's doing that darty thing with its head. 

[00:19:43] ESP: Yeah, I don't know why they do that. 

[00:19:44] Clare: They always look like they're dancing. 

[00:19:45] ESP: So I wrote this song on the computer. And it was about a minute long and it was bad.

And I went to go and remake it for this first album I'm doing, to update my current musical stylings. Current in massive air quotes, because I've been working on this album for four years now and it takes me about Three days to make a song not four years, not Jesus Christ. I massively overestimate.

[00:20:08] Clare: Wait a minute though, not necessarily because I started that question with, did you play, did you make music before you learned the piano? We've already established that you started learning the piano during lockdown, which is four years ago. 

[00:20:18] ESP: Yeah, sorry, that was a massive slip of the tongue. I've been working on this for a year and a half.

And the first song I ever wrote it honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But it was still, don't get me wrong, it was still, not great. 

[00:20:28] Clare: But were you doing any musical things before you started learning the piano? 

[00:20:31] ESP: Nope. Just, I was really bored one day.

[00:20:34] Clare: Yeah. 

So that's really interesting. And did you have much interest in music? 

[00:20:38] ESP: No. 

No. No, it just just happened. 

I was bored. 

[00:20:42] Clare: How interesting. 

[00:20:43] ESP: I was bored. I was a . It was a Thursday. I don't know if it was a Thursday. 

[00:20:48] Clare: Did you like to listen to music? Did you have like bands that you listened to and stuff?

[00:20:52] ESP: No, I just, not to my recollection. 

[00:20:54] Clare: How interesting. So they everything's fed, so the piano was the start. That was the first musical thing that you did. 

[00:21:01] ESP: My crappy little Yamaha keyboard from Ten years ago was the start. 

[00:21:06] Clare: And do you think that led to you listening to more music as well? The fact that you were making music?

[00:21:10] ESP: I think as I played it I definitely got into music. And definitely started listening to some. One of the first bands that I became like a proper fan of was a band called Taly Hall. And they've had a bit of a resurgence in recent years. 

[00:21:23] Clare: How do you spell that? I haven't heard of them. 

[00:21:24] ESP: T A L Y H A L L.

[00:21:26] Clare: Okay. 

[00:21:26] ESP: And, They blew up on Tiktok, and every time I tried to have my friends listen to one of their songs, they would always just say, Oh yeah, I know this song, it's the song from Tiktok, which I would probably excommunicate them and kick them out of my house. But, as for more recent listenings, even inspirations, I quite like again, as we mentioned earlier, a man called Will Woods, who is now on indefinite hiatus, actually.

And I quite like this guy called Joji or to use his prior online alias Filthy Frank, which I take a lot of inspiration from as well. 

[00:22:00] Clare: How are we spelling Joji? 

[00:22:02] ESP: J O J I. 

[00:22:02] Clare: And how do the kids at school react? Do they think it's really cool that you can play piano? 

[00:22:07] ESP: My friends, they just all I wrote a song called Sample This about a few months ago.

And it was because one of my friends texted to the group chat like a compilation of some guy doing like an acapella thing with only his voice and maybe his mate. And he just said, yeah, we need to do something like this, and, yeah, you're the music guy, can you put it together? 

Yeah.

And so they all so I asked them to all… 

[00:22:28] Clare: You're the music guy now, that's your job. 

[00:22:29] ESP: Yeah. I asked them to all send me, Different voice clips. I imagine them to be like softer tones I can if you want I can edit some in now if you send me this recording and I did this thing where I turned one of I turned him into a synth Which you can hear about a 20 second clip of now. 

Right, sample this.

[Recording of friend turned into a synth]

[00:23:14] ESP: That turned out quite well, especially because the snare sound was the, one of them smacking their lips eating a watermelon. Yeah, they all think of me as the music guy. 

[00:23:23] Clare: Cool. So at school, you said they have practice rooms that have got pianos in them. 

[00:23:27] ESP: Yeah. 

[00:23:28] Clare: Do you find yourself gravitating towards that during school time, like in breaks and stuff, do you go and play piano? 

[00:23:34] ESP: Yeah, often.

I, often because it's just warm and there's no one there. Yeah. But yeah, I quite like playing the piano and it lets me practice, which I Battle of the Bands is this month and I've barely practiced. 

[00:23:46] Clare: And what's the plan this month? Is it going to be, are you going to have your mates with you again?

[00:23:49] ESP: No. 

[00:23:50] Clare: Is it going to be solo act this time? 

[00:23:51] ESP: I'm a lone wolf, they drag me down. No. Ha. I just enjoy playing. 

[00:23:56] Clare: Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you very much for letting me interview you. 

[00:24:01] ESP: Yes. You're welcome. It was good to be interviewed. 

[00:24:05] Clare: Brilliant. 

[00:24:05] ESP: Can we do an outro? 

[00:24:07] Clare: Yes we can do an outro. What do you want to say? 

[00:24:09] ESP: Listen to my music. Goodbye. 

[00:24:13] Clare: I will make sure that there are links in the show description.

[ESP's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@extremelysloppyproductions
ESP's SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/ngfFY]

[00:24:16] ESP: Ah, okay. Thank you very much.

[00:24:18] Clare: Brilliant.

And before we go, you can listen to the recording I made of ESP playing piano in Piccadilly train station. 

[recording] 

Thank you to Anthony Thomas, who provided the theme music and stay tuned to hear more fascinating stories from street musicians.