Sugar: The new CD has only five tracks, which seems to be a new trend for SA bands.

Pieter: We have more songs to put out but we opted for an EP because it will sell for less than R40 and we can reach more of the CD-buying public. We have enough material to release two more EPs. I don't see us releasing a full album for quite a while now.

Sugar: Do you have a large national fan base?

Pieter: We have a bigger support base in Jo'burg and Pretoria than in Cape Town -- almost double. You're never a prophet in your own city! We've done three tours to Jo'burg and Pretoria as well as appearing at Oppikoppi three times. At the last Opikkoppi in August we had the Friday night 10 o'clock spot on the main stage, which was a great slot to play. We're going up again over new year to play Oppikoppi as well as some club dates in Gauteng.

Pieter: Well, it happened mostly as a result of the clubs in that area opening their doors to bands who were playing original music instead of cover versions. This encouraged more bands to play their own stuff and that in turn created an interest from the record companies. We now live in Cape Town but it did all start in that area. Arno from the Nude Girls used to open for Dorp playing acoustic sets. The concept of Dorp has been around for quite a while.

Sugar: The single 'Intelligent Men' off the new EP has a strong Dylan influence.

Pieter: It was actually written by Dylan Kemlo, our bassist, but I don't think Bob Dylan was ever a big influence on him when he wrote it or me when I sang it. Our Dylan is very cynical and he asked me to sing the song in a whiny type of style. So it is strange that it sounds like a Bob Dylan song. The version on the CD was actually the first take in the studio. We recorded multi-track and I sang a guide track on a regular crappy, live microphone for the first take and when we heard it afterwards we decided to keep it. We only added some extra sax to it and that was it.

Sugar: Your style has been described as "South African ska". Do you agree with this?

Pieter: The first album was very ska, funk and punk with a strong African influence. People thought the title 'Indigenous Jewellery' referred to these gem-like local songs when in fact it refers to the tyre and Lion match motif on the cover! The whole attitude behind the first album was that now everyone is happy and together in the rainbow nation but what happened before was that everyone was comfortably locked away behind their picket fences not seeing what was happening in the country. The first album had a political feeling coming through it but that was how we felt. There is also a strong African feel.

Sugar: It's like the expression, "You know you're in South Africa when you have workers dancing outside factories to express their unhappiness." That's the feeling I get from the Dorp sound - that you're not happy with the status quo but you're expressing it through a dance-music medium like ska.

Pieter: Yes, that's our intention, showing people the hardcore reality through humour. It's a kind of mix of The Clash and Madness. Our new album's title is implying that people are five steps off the pace, just missing the general point. The media and musicians are always looking overseas to see where music is heading and the bands hop on the existing bandwagons to catch some attention. We have enough good indigenous South African music without having to look elsewhere. The radio programmers are only playing local music that slots in comfortably with the overseas music that they play. They really are "five steps off the pacemakers", who are the bands setting the local standards.

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