This week we caught up with Casual 108 (AKA Sheep and Jimmy) to discuss their new mission. They aim to record 25 cover versions in 25 weeks as suggested by the great British public (namely fellow Wrexhamites, friends and acquaintances).

In typical Casual 108 style here is the sprawling interview:

WM: Hello Sheep and Jimmy!  Tell us about your new marathon recording project and how you came up with the idea?

Sheep – our plan is to learn and record a song a week, for 25 weeks Jimmy – which is harder than it sounds.

Sheep – we came up with the idea after I tried the iTunes challenge, y’know, putting your iTunes on shuffle and playing along as long as you can! I made it 40 songs without mistakes! Jimmy – there is video evidence of this.

Sheep – we thought asking people to challenge us would be quite interesting Jimmy – however, after the requests came in, we realised how few songs we actually know.

WM: Without giving too much away what is the wildest request you’ve received for the project?

Sheep – the wildest request… they were all pretty mad!

Jimmy – we had everything from R-Kelly to Slayer…

Sheep – Aqua to Phil Collins…

Jimmy – Foo Fighters to Miley Cyrus…

Sheep –  but the maddest one was probably Dragonforce, Through the Fire and Flame.

Jimmy – actually… Yeah

Sheep– the guy who requested it actually said “if you pull it off, I’ll pull you off”.

Jimmy – glad that stayed in the hat.  Sheep – yes.

WM: After a recent spate of Youtube videos from Casual 108 and no gigs announced why the focus on recordings and videos rather than live shows?

Sheep – I wouldn’t say that we were putting focus on recording and videos.

Jimmy – it’s all got a bit mad …

Sheep – I mean, we’re best friends and about 80% of the time we spend together, we’re playing music …

Jimmy – but we’re just too busy…

Sheep – I work, and I’m a dad and that…

Jimmy – and I’ve got two jobs and a band…

Sheep – so we just started recording some of the things we do, as we usually forget what we’ve done by the next time we meet up.

Jimmy – we never expected the response we’ve had.

Sheep – when we started the challenge we were wondering if we’d even get 25 requests …

Jimmy – but we had 108 in 3 days…

Sheep – and we’re still getting them!

Jimmy – we’ve only been at this since December, but the response has been amazing.

Sheep – we’ve been quite humbled by the interest in our little side project.

WM: What are your plans for the future?

Sheep – our plan is to get this challenge done…

Jimmy – and done well…

Sheep – whilst also writing an EP and working out a live set…

Jimmy – yeah, we’ve had some friends and musicians asking if we needed session musicians to gig…

Sheep – it’s put the idea in our head that we might do a couple of showcase gigs…

Jimmy – nothing too big…

Sheep – but a gig…

Jimmy – and a rather big project running alongside it…

Sheep – not giving too much away…

Jimmy – it’d be nice to actually hear what we’re writing as well…

Sheep – when we record, I play guitar, piano, drums and sing and Jimmy plays guitar, bass, piano and sings, so we play everything ourselves…

Jimmy – and we’d love to see if what we’re writing actually works live.

And with that WM left the Casual 108 chaps to finish off each others sprawling sentences in relative peace and quiet.

For those wondering of course we couldn’t resist a few suggestions (and are waiting to see if any get picked out of the luck dip to be recorded).

We opted for Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue’s ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow’,  Beach Boys ‘Forever’, Fear Factory’s ‘Hi-Tech Hate’, and finally Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’.

You can find our more about Sheep and Jimmy’s Casual 108 project via Youtube and Twitter.