Gavin continued, “We realized we couldn’t just go down and rap in these Californian accents and then speak like two lads from Dundee. People in the industry would think that was ridiculous. So we got to a point where it felt all or nothing… Two years in these characters? That required talent. We had everyone convinced we were the next Eminem. The scam was to con them in terms of the marketing.”
After getting signed to a label, they went from being in debt to suddenly having a lot of money in their accounts. They were stressed and paranoid about keeping up the act, but they got “completely addicted” to the lifestyle they portrayed.
Gavin said, “We needed to be approachable, fun, wild guys. We needed everyone to want to party with us. We felt we needed people to be with us, rather than against us. But we were 21-year-olds, we had no idea who we really were, and we started to become addicted to these characters who were far more cooler than we really were. The plan was to break into the industry and come clean. We started to lose that. After six months of playing a character and getting success, you start to forget who you really are. I’d see a picture of my parents and think, ‘I’m not their son anymore.’ We worked so hard at making these addictive characters, and we became addicted to them.”
However, according to the Guardian, keeping up the lies proved difficult. It took a toll on Gavin’s mental health. He drank too much and developed a stomach ulcer. It also ruined their friendship, and everything ended when Billy left to go home to Dundee.
The duo reunited in 2013 and released the EP Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as well as the documentary The Great Hip Hop Hoax.
James McAvoy directed the upcoming Silibil N’ Brains biopic California Schemin’.
