The synthy psychedelic-folk band hailing from Dalston are looking forward to the chocolate factory at the end of the day
TextDazed Digital
Django Django are a band you don't expect from Dalston. Far from many of the screeching indie louts upstairs at the Old Blue Last, they've been making emotive synth-rock psych numbers, having been labelled 'everyone's new favourite band' by Dummy Mag to the NME. With a mixtape blog and an array of epic dreamy singles like 'Storm' and 'Love's Dart', they're refusing to be held down to any one genre. We spoke to Dave Maclean and Vincent Neff who met at Edinburgh Art School with the other two members Tommy Grace and Jimmy Dixon, about their promising futures.
Dazed Digital: Do you think you relate to the rest of the (usual screaming art rock) East London bands?
Dave: I'm not really sure I know any other east london bands..
Vinny: I tend to listen to older stuff, but occasionally a really good new band pops up which I get excited about. SCUM are good, are they from east? Other than that there hasn't been a lot coming out of East London which pricks my ears. Screaming is so 2000s!
DD: How would you describe your sound?
Dave: Describing sound is a tricky one... When myself and Vinny first got together to talk about making music the brief was simply to make interesting pop music. The sound we have comes from a mixture of things .. the fact that we listen to a lot of different styles of music and the fact that its all recorded at home, forcing us to push what resources we have as far as we can.
Vinny: We try to underpin our stuff with kind of unusual beats and melodic vocals. Our live stuff can be quiet garagey, but with our recordings we get to open it up and use more layers... synths, loops, percussion, effects.
DD: What are you aiming for with your music?
Dave: I think production wise were always aiming to do a better job with each track we record.. I'm not sure there is an overall aim other than to keep moving on and seeing what we can come up with. We let each track go in its own direction without worrying too much how it sounds so recording is quite an exciting process and I guess an aim would be to see what's possible for us when we leave the bedroom and get into a studio.
Vinny: We all like to experiment with sound and try to get people dancing with our live stuff. We love listening to old tracks that still stand up to the test of time.
DD: Your artwork seems to be quite nature-focused.. where would you rather be, the city or the sea?
Dave: Yeah i'm sure its an outlet for an unconscious desire to flee the city for greener pastures.. It's all about balance for me. I love being in city and I love the great outdoors. Luckily my parents still live by the sea so I can escape there whenever I need to. Living in east London can grind you down if you don't get out and experience some nature every so often... some times a day at Hackney city farm does the job..
Vinny: The Irish Sea or the Caribbean? I think most of us where brought up by the sea so there's a connection there which we like to go home to. I find most people who live near the sea slightly mad in some ways so I always need dose of urbanism to keep the sanity.
DD: What are you listening to now?
Dave: Right now I'm listening to an amazing jazz LP called 'Impressions of the Middle East' by Herbie Mann. I got it at a car boot sale... it wasn't cheap mind.
Vinny: Jacuzzi Boys, Beak EP, Hank Garland, some 70s African proggy stuff, a collection old dark Irish and Scottish folk songs from the Napoleonic war that are good and the Dubliners.
DD: Is there anyone you want to collaborate with?
Dave: I've never really thought of that but I guess there would be a lot of people.. a dream collaboration would be to go into the 'black ark' studio with Lee Perry or have Giorgio Moroder produce a 12 minute disco epic for us.
Vinny: We've been doing a few remixes for people which have been good little projects, but don't want to collaborate with anyone as yet, just want to see what we've got in us first.
DD: What do you want to be doing in ten years?
Dave: When you're a kid ten years seems like an eternity but the last ten years has flown by! I'd love to be making our fifth or sixth album with Django Django... I think we have a lot of music in us so hopefully we can keep it going that long.. it's exciting to think what we could be doing in ten years time and where the music could go. It would be great to have our own label we can put out what ever we like... Maybe producing for other bands... I'd like to think we'll have couple of concept albums, a cheese farm and a rock opera under our belt by then too..
Vinny: A recluse in my own chocolate factory.
Dazed Digital: Do you think you relate to the rest of the (usual screaming art rock) East London bands?
Dave: I'm not really sure I know any other east london bands..
Vinny: I tend to listen to older stuff, but occasionally a really good new band pops up which I get excited about. SCUM are good, are they from east? Other than that there hasn't been a lot coming out of East London which pricks my ears. Screaming is so 2000s!
DD: How would you describe your sound?
Dave: Describing sound is a tricky one... When myself and Vinny first got together to talk about making music the brief was simply to make interesting pop music. The sound we have comes from a mixture of things .. the fact that we listen to a lot of different styles of music and the fact that its all recorded at home, forcing us to push what resources we have as far as we can.
Vinny: We try to underpin our stuff with kind of unusual beats and melodic vocals. Our live stuff can be quiet garagey, but with our recordings we get to open it up and use more layers... synths, loops, percussion, effects.
DD: What are you aiming for with your music?
Dave: I think production wise were always aiming to do a better job with each track we record.. I'm not sure there is an overall aim other than to keep moving on and seeing what we can come up with. We let each track go in its own direction without worrying too much how it sounds so recording is quite an exciting process and I guess an aim would be to see what's possible for us when we leave the bedroom and get into a studio.
Vinny: We all like to experiment with sound and try to get people dancing with our live stuff. We love listening to old tracks that still stand up to the test of time.
DD: Your artwork seems to be quite nature-focused.. where would you rather be, the city or the sea?
Dave: Yeah i'm sure its an outlet for an unconscious desire to flee the city for greener pastures.. It's all about balance for me. I love being in city and I love the great outdoors. Luckily my parents still live by the sea so I can escape there whenever I need to. Living in east London can grind you down if you don't get out and experience some nature every so often... some times a day at Hackney city farm does the job..
Vinny: The Irish Sea or the Caribbean? I think most of us where brought up by the sea so there's a connection there which we like to go home to. I find most people who live near the sea slightly mad in some ways so I always need dose of urbanism to keep the sanity.
DD: What are you listening to now?
Dave: Right now I'm listening to an amazing jazz LP called 'Impressions of the Middle East' by Herbie Mann. I got it at a car boot sale... it wasn't cheap mind.
Vinny: Jacuzzi Boys, Beak EP, Hank Garland, some 70s African proggy stuff, a collection old dark Irish and Scottish folk songs from the Napoleonic war that are good and the Dubliners.
DD: Is there anyone you want to collaborate with?
Dave: I've never really thought of that but I guess there would be a lot of people.. a dream collaboration would be to go into the 'black ark' studio with Lee Perry or have Giorgio Moroder produce a 12 minute disco epic for us.
Vinny: We've been doing a few remixes for people which have been good little projects, but don't want to collaborate with anyone as yet, just want to see what we've got in us first.
DD: What do you want to be doing in ten years?
Dave: When you're a kid ten years seems like an eternity but the last ten years has flown by! I'd love to be making our fifth or sixth album with Django Django... I think we have a lot of music in us so hopefully we can keep it going that long.. it's exciting to think what we could be doing in ten years time and where the music could go. It would be great to have our own label we can put out what ever we like... Maybe producing for other bands... I'd like to think we'll have couple of concept albums, a cheese farm and a rock opera under our belt by then too..
Vinny: A recluse in my own chocolate factory.
