Up and coming band New Islands from Midlands, UK consists of veteran singer songwriter David Jones (Formerly of The Departure) and his compatriots Tom, Raif, Luke and Bogart. They play music firmly in the pop realm but with an edge like David Bowie, Depeche Mode and Duran Duran. I spoke with them about where they’ve been and where they’re going.
As for the name “NewIslands”, Do you have an interest in the geological creation of islands? Or perhaps a more interpretative reason for the name?
Well, at some point in the future, dependent on available funds, we may put into practice our long-term goal of creating our own paradise. The name also has metaphorical meanings; we often write about themes involving escapism.
How did the band all get together?
NewIslands was started by myself and Luke. Luke was originally going to produce a couple of demo’s for me, but that plan kind of escalated into us starting a band. The other guys were recruited through friends and contacts we both had, it was quite a natural process really.
Enigmatic Characters
What was your first gig performing all together with your current line up?
We have only ever had this line-up, and our first gig was at Mat Hornes first ‘Session’ night at the Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch, London. It was a great first gig!
Being from the UK, the area where some of the world’s best synth pop came from, who are some of your influences from the region?
We’re influenced by quite a few British artists, namely Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Pink Floyd.
Your song “Cross Town Feel” has a theme similar to (in my mind at least) Romeo and Juliet, do you draw inspiration from literary sources? If so which ones?
I’d say most of our material comes from personal life experiences, dreams, film and music. So in a way there is indirect influences from literary sources.
Is your songwriting process pretty democratic, or does one person mainly write the songs and the band then fleshes them out?
Luke and I write all of the songs in ‘the barn ™’, where luke produces them as we go. We then take them to the band and spend a bit of time rehearsing them. The band add a bit of character to the songs, and more of a live feel. Its a great process and tends to be very productive. When together we try and come up with one or two tunes a week. We’ll do this for a few weeks, and then maybe take a break so we don’t start repeating ourselves, and then come back fresh. We love the writing process.
You recently released a video for your song “Out of Time”, I’m assuming the band made an appearance via close ups of your eyes, but what was that experience like shooting a video like that? What do you think of the final product?
Yeah, the band made an appearance in the video, and contributed a lot of ideas. Roman Rappak did a great job of realising our visions. It was shot and edited in his warehouse flat in South London. We are really pleased with how it turned out.
What’s next for NewIslands?
Well as we write we are putting the finishing touches to a new tune, so pretty excited about that. As for the future, we are preparing our second single and getting new material ready. We will be playing a few shows in the coming months also.
Wave Machines, a band that erupted into my consciousness last summer with their infectious hit “Keep the Lights On” has released their acclaimed debut album in the United States (Finally!) via their website.
Check out their album “Wave if You’re Really There” streaming here! While “Keep the Lights On” will certainly hit the sweet spot for those who are looking for some dance-tastic tunes in the vein of MGMT and Passion Pit, but that’s not all that the London Quartet do. They’ve got some layered pop songs that are more akin to James Yuill covering The Cure with the Beegees. If you’re unsure if that’s a good thing, let me assure you that, yes, it is a good thing.
Midlake Perform Live at Castaways in Ithaca, NY May 18, 2010
Midlake took to the stage at Castaways in Ithaca the other night and showed off their solid songwriting and their ability to rock out whether it was with their four guitarists or flutes, recorders and even picolos. The band had been robbed in Columbus, OH a few nights before, but they managed to get some gear from various music shops in Ithaca. In particular, several tambourines from a man who was very excited about percussion. Despite all this their show was worth coming out for not only for their set but a nice intimate set with Jason Lytle (Formerly of Grandaddy). Castaways is a really great venue, because it can nab up names like My Dear Disco, A.C. Newman, Neko Case and Jason Lytle in an extremely intimate setting that’s not really all that far away.
NightWaves are a synth pop group based out of Los Angeles
NightWaves is a group based in Los Angeles, California who make stirring and substantial synth pop. I spoke with them about their origins, their involvement with Binary Entertainment and their plans for the future.
How did you (Kyle Petersen, Josh Legg, and David Urbina) meet?
Josh: Kyle and I met at USC, where we were both on the intercollegiate sailing team. Throughout school we bonded over and debated music pretty heavily. I remember somehow getting an advance copy of The Killers’ Hot Fuss and us falling in love with it right away. We had been writing music for years independently, but we started to collaborate more in 2008 after our tastes moved into more electronic genres. The third member of our band, our guitarist David Urbina came from our time at USC as well. We make electronic based music, but we knew we wanted NightWaves to move towards a more organic, live sound, so adding Dave as the principle guitarist made a lot of sense.
How did you decide that making a synth-pop band was what you wanted to do?
Kyle: Well I wouldn’t say it was a calculated decision or anything like that. At the time that NightWaves started Josh and I were just heavily involved with music, going out to Spaceland and the Echo every week getting $3 PBR’s and seeing the upcoming indie bands emerging from the east side here in LA. So at night we’d do that, and in the daytime we were spending a lot of time cruising Myspace and just digging into all the emerging melodic dance music that was coming out of France and Australia at the time. Josh and Dave and I have played in a lot of different bands in the past, mainly just as a way for us to play our instruments and make some music. But I think when NightWaves started it was just sort of the right crossroads in our lives where we started to embrace pop music, and we tried to combine all of our musical past into one sound that just kinda felt right for the change that was going on in our world.
How did the name “NightWaves” come about?
Josh: A theme that comes up over and over again in our music is that of waves. Besides the litteral association with the ocean, which is something we’re somewhat obsessed with, it refers to a few different things. Thinking of emotion in terms of waves… That feeling you get when something boils up inside you and you can’t help but let it take over. Waves of altered states. Waves of tension and release in music. NightWaves just is speaking on how everything feels bigger at night, when your blood is flowing a little faster. We’re just trying to capture those feelings.
How did you get hooked up with Binary Entertainment?
Kyle: Josh and I actually started Binary in late 2007, so NightWaves had a pretty easy time getting signed up with that, haha. Long story short, Josh and I were both working different jobs, we had always shared a profound interest in music, we talked about doing something in artist management, we put the pieces of the puzzle together and that was the beginning of what Binary is today. This is all relevant because that’s when NightWaves started…as I mentioned above, Josh and I were so into music discovery at the time, it was just sort of natural for NightWaves to start as we were trying to create music to sort of define in our heads what this new sound was all about, and that new sound became the style of Binary. So Binary and NightWaves are kinda twins…but Binary was born first.
Looking back at the songs you’ve done as NightWaves, what is the common theme that runs through them all?
Josh: It seems like everyone we hang out with here in Los Angeles has Peter Pan syndrome. Nobody really wants to grow up. Its not a ‘we want to party hard all the time’ thing, but more of a longing for the innocent times of our youth, when any day could be the most important day of your life. Themes of innocence and nostalgic memories of youth definitely appear often in NightWaves’ music. Our friends in LexiconDon have a song called ‘Dance Floor Affair’ thats about the power of having a one night, or even one song, intense relationship with someone you’ve just met. NightWaves is always about recalling something primal and emotional from listeners. As far as we’re concerned, the types of emotions you felt when you were a teenager are the purest you can find.
What does your live show set up look like?
Kyle: In terms of technical setup, we’ve got Josh and I with our keyboards running our synths through Logic, and then there’s Dave on a Les Paul guitar, and then there’s a currently unoccupied drumset in the back, haha. Josh and I both have microphones so we can do some dueling vocals.
David: Adding the live guitar and drums definitely bring a rockier, explosive element to the original tracks and it translates really well on stage. We realize the importance of putting on a show. People want to hear flawless well-produced songs, especially in the dance/synth-pop circles, but they’re also there to see a live organic performance. Our set up brings the two together in a way that people don’t usually expect from the original recordings.
NightWaves Performing Live
What’s an instrument neither of you can live without?
Josh: Its hard not to say the soft synths that we write with in Logic. Without them, there would definitely be no NightWaves. That being said, I’ve been writing with an acoustic guitar for over 10 years and even NightWaves most recent single “Sweet Carrie” was written just like that, with an acoustic guitar and a pad of paper. It’s gotta be my Martin acoustic.
Kyle: Hmmm, even though I sadly and apparently can live without my acoustic guitar, which has been put on the shelf for awhile since I’m busy playing synths all the time, if I was on a deserted island and could only have one instrument it would be that. I think acoustic guitars can just build a much stronger bond with their owner. It’s like having a dog that you don’t need to feed or pick up his shit.
What do you have planned for the summer?
Kyle: Man, we’re so pumped for the summer. Well aside from a ton of stuff going on with Binary, NightWaves will be heading out to the East Coast to Josh’s place in Boston so we can sort of get away from all the constant distractions, for lack of a better word, of Binary. The idea is to emerge ourselves in a tranquil place and to just get creative. Kinda like when other bands disappear into the woods for months and emerge with beards and a full length. Except we’re not going into the woods…and we won’t be gone for months…but I could go with the beard thing, that’d be tight.
It’s no doubt on many people’s minds, where are the good concerts gonna be this summer? Will I have to drive far? Should I stay local and take in jazz fests and coffee shops? Well those all sound like great options. Why not do them all? Be fiscally responsible though!
Spending my money responsibly is something that makes me overthink every purchase and trip. Do I go to a concert or buy some cool new artistic gadget (Like some cool paint pens I used on tropical Wesley up there)? Money is hard to come by these days, so logically I don’t like to part with it. But here’s the thing, you can’t retroactively buy back experience. So, I am going to try to balance all of these components to make up a mentally and culturally stimulating summer.
Midlake on a fine summer's day.
The first event that I will be attending is Midlake’s performance at Castaways in Ithaca. I’ve enjoyed this band for many years now, particularly their songs “Roscoe” and “We Gathered in Spring”. The dealmaker is that tickets are only $15. The show takes place after most students have left Ithaca, so it should be a low key affair, just like most of the well crafted songs of Midlake.
Interpol graphic inspired by TRON patrol bots?
The next concert on the “Should I stay or should I go” chopping block is Interpol playing at Waterstreet in Rochester. I missed them the last time they played in 2008, so this time around I have an inclination to see them even though their bassist Carlos D has left. Which is kind of weird, but it might be a good thing. I’m eagerly awaiting the news of what the heck is going on with them.
Double necked guitar for the win.
And last but not least, The Flaming Lips are playing in Canandaigua on July 23. This is the most difficult concert to justify because I just saw them in April. But they’re the Flaming Lips man! Such a great show. If I had my way I would see them once a month.
Well, on the accounts of Interpol and the Flaming Lips, should I stay or should I go?
If some of you were wondering why I hadn’t posted anything in a good solid month, well the real world came knocking and told me it was time to buckle down and get a million things done in time to graduate. So I apologize for my lapse, but just know that now you’re reading the words of an individual who now holds two college degrees and is on his way to his third. As an artsy type dude I brought a little sketchbook with me to graduation to pass the time and I sketched quickly almost everyone who spoke and at the end I had something of a real time graphic novel. Thinking this is kind of a neat idea, I’ve decided to share it with all of you!
Guys in a bar a few nights prior to graduation.
President Stanley and Sen. Schumer
Sen Schumer drops my catchphrase.
Representatives Owens and Barclay
President Stanley with one heck of a medallion.
Class President Ballesteros speaks!
The speech was long, and this baby was the only quiet baby.
Naomi Wolf was our featured speaker!
Naomi Wolf talked a lot. I was hungry.
Naomi Wolf says we are superheroes!
A camera man was looking silly.
The camera man watches the mighty wizard.
To top all of this off is a great cover of a terribly annoying song. Mr. Noxious makes the Black Eyed Peas tolerable. The theme of the song kind of goes along with the idea of graduating and celebrating, so yeah!
Cu-Cu's Miles George adorned in green winter's cap.
Cu-Cu is the alter ego of Miles George, a resident of the Rochester, NY area who has been writing songs since he was 10 years old.
How did you end up making music?
When I was a kid, probably about five or six years old, I had this analog tape recorder. I would go into my parents’ bedroom and record myself singing songs made up at the top of my head. Years later, I became much more serious about being a songwriter by writing lyrics down on paper. I felt that it was the only plausible way to express my thoughts at the time. I guess it still is.
Who are some of your older influences, and newer influences?
Like with many, The Beatles were one of my very first influences. After my first few listens of The White Album, I began to understand the concept of music as an art form. Later on, bands such as Barenaked Ladies and They Might Be Giants taught me how music can be both quirky and serious simultaneously. As my tastes broadened, I began listening to bands and artists such as Beck, Wilco, R.E.M., The Flaming Lips, Tom Waits and many others. Most recently, it’s been alot of Pixies and Arcade Fire.
How did you come up with the name “Cu-Cu” for your music? Does it have anything to do with bird calls or the state of your mental health?
My mental health is fine, thank you for asking. Cu-Cu was a name that I came up with when I was maybe eight years old. I didn’t exactly know how to spell the word ‘cuckoo’ at the time, so I just butchered it and went with ‘Cu-Cu’. I still don’t know its significance to this day, I guess it just stuck. If my music title remained as Miles George, people would be expecting a prepubescent teenager with an acoustic guitar singing sappy love songs. I believe I’m a little more than that.
When you write a song, do you think of the structure musically first or do you write the lyrics first and then build the music around it?
It really depends, as many artists would agree. When I first started writing music, I always wrote the melody first and improvised the lyrics while recording the songs. But within the past few years, I’ve been really focusing on my lyrics and spending time with them. As abstract as they can be sometimes, there are still hidden meanings behind a lot of them.
Are there any overarching themes that you find yourself returning to over and over in the process of recording your albums?
I mostly write my songs about people… all sorts of people. Businessmen abandoned in a haze, grumpy old men with dying lawns, prison guards, preachers, butchers, cheerleaders. Whatever inspiration comes to me at the time. I write personal songs as well, but I’m usually disguised as other people in my songs. I guess I’m just fascinated with characters.
Is there an instrument that you just can’t live without and have to play?
Well, if you’ve seen me play live, you know that I mostly center myself around a variety of instruments including a keyboard, some toy pianos, a set of gamelan chimes, some shakers and a voice changer. But if I ever lost my ability to sing, I would probably stop writing music all together.
Who are some of the best bands (or performer) you’ve had an opportunity to play with?
One of my best friends, Kirk Stevens, has played shows with me ever since we were in high school. He is an amazing songwriter who I feel does not receive the attention that he fully deserves.
Please check him out: www.myspace.com/kirkstevens
The music scene in Rochester is one that really goes overlooked sometimes, and it’s quite a shame. There are so many local musicians out there, continuing what they’ve been doing since they were teenagers. I think that’s pretty amazing.
Whats the best show you’ve taken in lately?
My best shows seem to always occur at Towpath Cafe in Fairport, NY. I live five minutes away from the place, and it’s pretty gratifying to know that I have the ability to fill that cramped space with over fifty people at a time, willing to listen to and get involved with the local music scene.
What’s currently in rotation on your portable music player of choice?
Right now, it’s been a lot of Sparklehorse. Mark Linkous was one of my favorite listens throughout high school, and his recent death is a great loss in the independent music world.
What’s on the horizon for Cu-Cu?
I’m working on a collection of new material right now, and I would like to have a new album done by later this year, hopefully. Besides that, I believe I have some shows lined up in the Rochester area this May, so stay tuned!
Wayne Coyne gives the crowd at Cornell some 'Face Time'
What a year for concerts it has been for upstate New York so far. Bands worth their hype like Passion Pit, Miike Snow, Dan Black (Formerly of The Servant), El Ten Eleven, Phantogram, Neon Indian, Freeze Pop and Plushgun have been streaming steadily through the sometimes seemingly stagnant spring season of the New York Area, but perhaps the crowning achievement of all this excellent 2010 booking is The Flaming Lips’ appearance at Cornell University. Often times, bands are heralded as the best live act of the year and then they fade away, but The Flaming Lips have been steadily increasing the spectacle of their live performances for well over a decade. This is a band known to invite and incite the wild dancing of fans in furry animal costumes as well as cover themselves and the crowd with fake blood, glitter, and streamers. With this in mind, their performance at Cornell University had a lot to live up to.
As with any good concert, the trip to the city and the venue is just as exciting as the show itself. The area of Ithaca is known for their dual academic institutions of Cornell and Ithaca College as well as their stunning gorges. Because of its beauty and status as a pre-eminent college town, there’s quite a culture brewing on the hilly streets of Ithaca. People looking for a good organic restaurant or a record rarity will have luck just walking down the street in their Ithaca commons area. Even an individual with an affinity for Austrian Expressionism can find something in this town. That is to say that I found a watercolor painting done by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele in Cornell’s Johnson Gallery and it made my day.
To add to the color of the moment, as I made my way to Cornell’s historic Barton Hall, where the likes of The Grateful Dead, Aretha Franklin and Bruce Springsteen have performed over the past four decades, people dressed in all kinds of ridiculous costumes walked beside me. Bananas, men wearing tutus – even Captain America made an appearance.
Opening for the Flaming Lips was a fellow band from Oklahoma City, Coyne’s nephew’s band Stardeath and White Dwarf, with whom the Lips recently recorded and released a complete cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the moon. The limber men of SDAWD played songs that ranged from slow-mo psyche rock freakouts to dance-rock excercises all while imagery of dyed cells and images of space synched to their songs played on a giant circular screen.
After the completion of the SDWD set, the crew for The Flaming Lips resumed their technical duties setting up instruments and an assortment of set pieces. During this time, The Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne made his way around the stage to shoot streamers and throw confetti to roars from the enormous crowd. This blatant disregard for typical lead singer behavior (i.e. waiting until the fans are at a fever pitch before making an appearance) is another reason that he has the reputation of being the most amiable indie rock personality.
When The Flaming Lips’ show did start, the Lips began their show in the best way they could to illustrate the concept of their latest album “Embryonic”. They did this by emerging from their giant circular projection screen of a woman’s neon pulsating genitals and moments later singer Wayne Coyne emerged from her pupil in his famous man-sized hamster ball and thrilled the audience as he crowd-strolled over them. The Lips played material from their new album like “She Can Be a Frog” from their latest album “Embryonic” before playing signature sing-a-longs like “She Don’t Use Jelly” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”. One very interesting highlight of the show was on a new song “Powerless” where Wayne Coyne led the band through a thrilling guitar solo. The Lips ended their main set with a chaotic, almost tribal rendition of “Watching the Planets”. For an encore, The Flaming Lips played a cover of “Eclipse” by Pink Floyd. Then the band pre-empted the last song of the night, a triumphant rendition of The Flaming Lip’s most recognized song, “Do You Realize”, with a sad note that a member of White Dwarf’s father had recently passed away and the song had been played at his funeral. Given this, Wayne Coyne and company implored the crowd to really respond to the song. This kind emotional weight that The Flaming Lips add to their music is what makes them a legend in modern music. Amid things like thousands of laser pointers, giant laser hands, giant circular LED screens and dancing catfish, the band has a heart that’s equal to the spectacle.
I spoke with Dan Black back in April about his new album ((un)) the ideas behind the music and his most recent tour.
A: On your last album with The Servant you felt stifled, do you think that lead to you branching out and creating solo work?
D: Yeah, Completely. That was a key part of it.
A: You’ve said that you wanted the album to sound like N.E.R.D. and Sigur Ros, were there any other prominent inspirations you drew from during your songwriting process?
D. Yeah, many [I took inspiration] from [people like] Nick Drake to Bjork, to early Missy Elliot, Scott Walker, Trent Smith and Sebastien.
A: You’ve said that what you really like to do is come up with melodies, are there any artists that you admire for their ability to put together a melody?
D: Sure, I love Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, she’s an amazing melodicist. I quite like Perry Farell and his work early on with Jane’s addiction and of course Morrissey.
A: You wrote your album largely in the winter of 2007 at your place in Paris, what was that like?
D: One of the key things that was different about this album was that I’d made it totally on my own and that was heightened even more by being in a country where I didn’t speak the language that well and it being winter so I was kind of holed up in the cellar so it was very, very, solitary, even though I was in a city. It was very much just making music in general, which is sort of an eternal sordid thing, but it was heightened by it being winter and it being a city that I didn’t know that well and not knowing any people didn’t speak the language well so I didn’t properly understand people so I was sort of locked in my own little bubble.
A: How did you decide on Hypnotize the Biggie Smalls song “Hypnotize” to cover (Which Eventually became lead single “Symphonies”)?
D: Well I did a bunch of these experiments when I first began to see if I could do the sort of songs that I loved and was inspired by. I was thinking about the songs and ways to properly and literally sew the songs together to see if I could make them work and put other things on top. They were basically experiments to see if I could make music that way; if I could solve that puzzle. But some of them came out in such a way that they were more than an experiment, they had a life to themselves. So one of the ones that was like that was “Hypnotize”. “Hypnotize” the original song was one of my favorite hip-hop tracks ever and I wanted to see if I could bring it into a different universe. A different world.
A: How did using the Starman theme from the John Carpenter movie come into play on that song?
D: Well, it was a film I’d seen when I was a kid. I remember loving the soundtrack when I was a kid, when I saw it. And it just popped into my head and it was a nostalgic thing for me.
Dan Black's ((un))
A: You’ve expressed that the reason behind naming the album “UN” was because each letter was the opposite of the other. How did the idea of including the concept of opposites in your album come about?
D: Making the songs work for me is a mix of searching for things and making the song sound, well, good and sound real and true. The way it works to have a song with a contradiction in it, it’s got two things that are so opposite. I noticed that afterward, it wasn’t something where I thought to myself “I need to do this”. I’d like certain songs and I asked myself “Why does this song speak to me more than other things?” and often it would be because the song contained a happy quality or a sad quality at the same time or something that was aggressive but also sort of fragile. Or something that has electric elements in it but at the same time it sounds human and sounds organic. It was more of a discovery of that thing more than going “Oh, I want to do this”. The concept came after with me looking back at what made the songs work.
A: You recently played in Albany New York, how did that go?
D: It went really really good. We’d never been to Albany before so our expectations were kind of low. We’ve been to all these places where there are so many people who want to see you and check you out and Albany was pretty quiet, so, it was really really good.
A: I watched a video where you performed with a couple of your bandmates with samplers and laptops while you were sitting with an acoustic guitar. Was this how you performed in Albany or did you perform full on with all the members of the band?
D: It was full on, it’s only the three of us still, but I’m playing a laptop and triggering songs and stuff and I’m singing and the other guys are doing sometimes percussion and sometimes guitar, sometimes bass and sometimes keyboards.
A: What do you like about working off of laptops as opposed to playing with a more traditional rock set up? What do you find more satisfying about that?
D: We’ll be able to play all aspects of the song. I can build and sculpt the whole song. I like the fact that it makes more music, it’s like a leveler. Everything can be equal and turned into a wave form and you can do what you want with it. Whether your resource is a synth or a bass or a broken car engine they all turn into the same substance and they are equally malleable. From that point any possibility is possible.
A: For the visuals associated with the album, what kind of guidelines did you have for their creation?
D: Partly, just stuff that reflected me and my feelings at that time as well as the music. I just got loads of images together that I felt reflected what we were trying to do. We were trying to take everyday objects and bend them to their own will. It was similar to how I make songs that ring true in a way.
A: From those objects one that sticks out in my mind is the Gun Head that you wore in the video for “Yours” how did that idea get started?
D: When we started the very first thing we did was an avatar of me levitating in my studio. At that time I wanted to come up with a logo that made people think of Dan Black and one of the people that I had been working with came up with a shirt that had a bird that had a gun for a head. She replaced the bird’s head with a gun and I thought “Oh, that’s really cool,” and I thought maybe we could do the same thing with the [levitating] body and stick a gun on its head. At first I thought that could be a really good logo. I wasn’t quite sure why I liked it. It dawned on me as I was making the record that I had one mission and sacrificed every aspect of my life just to make the record and make the music and also how it was “Do or die”. I was shooting these songs out and I had only one function, and when it came time to do the video I thought “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to actually make the gun head and do a video with it” and so we did.
A: While we’re talking about visuals, the video for the song “Symphonies” is spectacular in the way that it cycles through the vignettes of classic films, how did that idea come to be?
D: The lyrics of the song are talking about “When is the soundtrack of my life going to kick in”. So they said why don’t we have you walk through the titles of classic movies and I thought that was really cool. So we sat there and discussed the kinds of films that we thought would be 1: executable and 2: relevant. From there we just made a crazy wish list and tried to make it work and then at the end slide it together.
A: You ended up getting Kid Cudi to rap on a version of the song, how did that come about?
D: It was very simple, my friend of a friend played him some of my stuff and he liked it. So he got in contact and said he liked it and asked for an instrumental and so I e-mailed him back with an instrumental. Then he sent me back a track with his vocals on it and I loved it and it was done. At that point I thought “What am I gonna do with this thing”. I was in Paris and he was in New York so it was a very modern music [project] using the internet. It was a very simple, uncomplicated thing.
A: In the video for “Symphonies”, there are some outer space scenes, and this question is kind of left field, but what is your favorite planet?
D: I don’t know, maybe moon of Saturn or Jupiter or even like Io, I like those weird kind of far away lonely places.
A: After listening to your album repeatedly, I feel like the album itself is about personal triumph, can you speak about that?
D: I wrote the album when I’d left a band and at that point I thought “Should I maybe give up music?” I’d been thinking about it for a long time and wasn’t having any more. Was I stupid to keep trying to do music, I wondered if I had peaked artistically. I had to make the choice and at the end I had to do it. A lot it stems from fear and in the end that’s what it’s all about, continuing. It’s about adversity and personal triumph. So that was definitely a theme.
A: What are some things that you were able to do on this record that you’re really excited about as opposed to any other music project you’ve done?
D: To not have my work filtered by others. Each song is my sole vision on how that song should be. That was the key thing that was different. I was able to include obscure hip hop things as well as pop things.
A: Speaking of pop and hip hop things, the bassline on “Alone” is great, how did that come about?
D: That was the first part of the song I wrote. That bassline came from just breaking up a beat and getting out a bass and just playing along. A lot of my songs come from just playing and that feeling of having fun and being free. I remember making the beat up and playing the bass part quite fast and the rest of the song came from that.
A: While you’re doing your tour what are some things you’re looking forward to?
D: Meeting new people. At the moment everywhere we’re playing is new so right now it’s just a question of covering as much ground as possible and playing good shows.
How did the name “NightWaves” come about?
