If you think you know hip-hop, think again. Peter Parker and Sneaky combine dirty, scratchy turntable grooves with funky double bass rhythms and movie soundtrack formulae to create concept albums of crazy proportions.

This album sees the boys cheating death, finding a different galaxy and having a close encounter with a few musical aliens. Confused?

BBC Southampton's Abbie Collins tried to make sense of it all with double bass player Sneaky.

Well Sneaky, I'm completely flummoxed. What on earth is happening on your latest album?
We try not to say too much about it. There is a kind of concept to it but it's also something that we'd like people to make their own minds up about, so we don't want to give too much away.

Basically at the end of the last album we died and on this album our coffins have been jettisoned into the galaxy. So me and Parker are in these capsules and have got into some kind of time hole where we are transported to a galaxy called The Red Nebula. We find ourselves reanimated and play in this band called The Big Red Nebula Band who are the resident band within this universe. This album is a product of our time there!

Sneaky

Your other albums have bizarre concepts too. How do you dream them up?
I don't know. It just kind of happens. We're not trying to take ourselves too seriously. We're into the whole escapism side of music and we like people to get involved with the whole musical and visual side of what we do. We make up these crazy stories so people can wig out!

We don't want to make it so much of a concept that people get lost in it but we're quite inspired by a lot of albums that were concept albums. Things like Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of the Moon.

What else inspires you because you seem to have influences coming in from everywhere.
Yeah we do actually. We're pretty obsessive about finding different stuff. Me and Parker can cover quite a lot of ground because we come from different musical backgrounds.

My parents are classical musicians so I took that route into classical music too and played in jazz bands in college and played lots of old funk. Also, soundtracks are a big thing for both of us. We're both really into the art of writing music for films and the power that it has.

What kind of music do you listen to at home?
It changes from day to day really. At the moment I'm listening to a soundtrack called Black Jack. It's a Blaxploitation soundtrack. I listen to all sorts of stuff like Minnie Riperton, Stevie Wonder, funk and soul, anything that's a bit gritty really.

Chris Drury

You incorporate a lot of Chris Drury's artwork into your albums and live shows. How does that work.
Well I live with him and he draws stuff while we're writing the demos and then we're also inspired by the characters he draws. It's kind of a rolling thing from the three influences.

How did you hook up with him?
I went to college with him. He was at Salford with me. I ended up sharing a house with him back in '95 or '96. I'm still living with him now!

Dan (Parker) met him weirdly about three or four years before that at art college before he came to Salford.

Are you all big sci-fi fans?
Definitely. Parker and Chris are really into it. Dan collects figures and sci-fi films. John Carpenter is probably his biggest influence. Anything sci-fi really, all the escapism. Dan's got a ridiculous amount of toys and figures - they're all round his house.

Where does the name Fingathing come from?
It's not very intelligent really. It probably came from a drunken trip on a tour bus. We were thinking about names and that fact that we use our fingers directly in what we do in terms of turntables and bass being the key things in the band.

Peter Parker

Tell me about your live show. Will it be just the two of you onstage in Southampton?
It'll be the three of us, me, Dan and Chris. We have a big screen and Chris has done animations and video footage for the live show. He has cameras in positions, one in front of me and one in front of Dan and he blends the live footage of us with the animations so it'll be a full on visual experience.

You've been playing the double bass and the cello since you were tiny. When did you discover that you could combine that with hip-hop?
It was never something that I really thought too much about. It was just something that I was into. When I was at music college I was playing in a lot of different bands.There was never one thing that I was really buzzing about.

There was a night that I used to go to in Manchester called Headfunk - a funk and hip-hop club night. People like Scruff and Mark Rae DJed there in about '94, '95, before they became well known names. I just took my double bass along thinking that it might be nice if I played along with the DJs and they said ok.

Then I got asked by Mark Rae to play with Grand Central Sound System which eventually became The Rae And Christian Band and that's where I met Peter Parker.

You're playing in Southampton on your birthday. Do you have anything special planned?
I haven't no. I'm going to be 29. What do you do on your 29th birthday? I'm looking forward to it, it should be good. I don't have anything specific in mind - I'll just see what happens on the night.