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1.A lot of music fans will be aware of Cajun Dance Party from the
initial press coverage that you received a couple of years ago. But
how do you feel that you’ve changed both as a group and personally
since that time?
Daniel: “Well, we’re not at school anymore (laughing)! No,
I think loads of things have happened. I mean obviously we had a lot
of press really early on, when we were young – it wasn’t too
long ago, but it feels like ages ago, because obviously these couple
of years are the ones where you do sort of really grow up, in a way
(smiling), like 15 to 18. I think personally, I’ve changed a lot
and the band has changed a lot personally and musically. At that time,
it was just all a bit mad, because we didn’t really know what we
were trying to achieve or anything. We knew where we started, which
was the Battle Of The Bands, but we didn’t really know anything
else – the rest of it was all just quite crazy!”
Robbie: “Chaos!”
Daniel: “Yeah, exactly (laughing)! In interviews, people would
be asking us stuff and I didn’t have anything to say, so I’d
just say silly things (laughing). But now that I have got more into
music since then, I think as a band, we sort of know where we want to
be going a bit more.”
2.Would you say that you all now have a common goal, and what is
it that you take from the artists / bands that you most admire?
Robbie: “I think songwriting has always got to be central –
its always got to be key! And in terms of a common goal, in the broad
sense of things, it’s just to be ruthlessly self-critical, write
better and better songs and get that side of things right, with a view
to creating better records!”
Daniel: “Yeah.”
3.What has been the best thing that someone has said about CDP?
Daniel: “I quite liked it when someone said, “It’s too
pop to be weird and too weird to be pop.” It was meant as a criticism,
but I liked it, I thought that was cool (laughing)! I’m not sure
if Robbie would agree with me?”
Robbie: “I do, yeah (nodding).”
Daniel: “Really (surprised)?”
4.Complete the following: I would like to write a song as good as…
and make an album that equals… ?
Daniel: “Oh my gosh.”
Robbie: “Shall we do them separately (looking at Daniel)?”
Daniel: “Yeah, we’ll probably disagree otherwise (laughing)!”
Robbie: “I would like to write a song as good as Tangled Up In
Blue (Bob Dylan), and make an album that equals Ys by Joanna Newsom.”
Daniel: “That’s funny that you said Tangled Up In Blue, I
wouldn’t have expected you to say that, it’s quite interesting.
I would like to write a song as good as (long pause + thinking), I can’t
think… maybe Another Day Full Of Dread by Bonnie Prince Billy.
And I would like to make an album that equals Slanted And Enchanted
(Pavement).”
5.The Colourful Life has a very memorable opening salvo of songs,
but are there any albums in your record collection, which you feel have
a strong set of opening songs that sit well next to each other?
Daniel: “Slanted And Enchanted (laughing) – definitely! That’s
got a good opening (pausing), actually, the best opening to an album
is Ziggy Stardust by Bowie – it’s not really one of my favourite
albums, but the opening is amazing!”
Robbie: “I like the first few tracks of Revolver – Taxman,
Eleanor Rigby and I’m Only Sleeping – that’s an amazing
set of opening songs!”
Daniel: “Silver Jews always have amazing first lyrics. Actually,
the three artists who I find (pausing), Bonnie Prince Billy and Lambchop
always put their best tracks at the start of albums, and Silver Jews
always come up with the best lyrics – the opening line is always
amazing! But I hadn’t heard of any of these people before writing
The Colourful Life.”
6.If you could join any other band for just one night, who would it
be?
Robbie: “Oh man (long pause + thinking), I’d like to be in
Björk’s backing band…”
Daniel: “How about Suede?”
Robbie: “No (laughing), definitely not Suede! It would be Björk’s
backing band!”
Daniel: “I don’t know? I think I’d say Pavement, because
it would be so much fun and they’re my favourite band – it
would probably be hilarious!”
7.In reference to your band name, what’s the best party that
you’ve ever been to?
Robbie: “Oh wow! Well Will – our drummer – there’s
always things at his house which I really like going to, which we kind
of co-host together.”
Daniel: “That sounds so good (jokingly), “There’s always
things at Will’s house which we co-host (laughing).” The best
party that I’ve ever been to (pausing), I was wearing a Daniel
Johnston T-shirt, I’d just seen him the night before and I was
walking in Hackney Market (pausing), this sounds made up but it’s
true (laughing)! This fat man walked past with dribble coming out both
sides of his mouth – he was American and you could see his belly
and he had dribble down his top. I was with my girlfriend and he was
like (adopting an American accent), “Hey man, I love Daniel Johnston
so much, he’s my hero!” And I was like, “Oh, he’s
amazing, we saw him last night.” And then we just got into this
massive conversation. He’s got this radio station called South
Hackney Radio, which is amazing – it broadcasts for about an hour
every Thursday, this is what I found out later. He’s got listeners
from all over the world and he’s been doing it for a few years
– I think he’s got 26 listeners now (laughing)! But anyway,
I was like, “That’s amazing about your radio station,”
because he was talking about all of this amazing music and he was like,
“Do you want to do a show on it?” And we said, “Yes,
definitely!” So he said, “Well why don’t you come to
my party tonight, just bring a few beers and we can talk about it.”
He gave us his address and we went there and when we walked in (laughing),
he was just sitting in the front room of his house, opening Birthday
presents and eating cake. It was just him on his own and there were
loads and loads of fish tanks, and we were just sat speaking to him
for ages, and he was sort of half-speaking, half-eating this massive
cake. There was one point where he was sitting on the sofa and he was
trying to open this present, but he couldn’t be bothered to pick
it up, so he was just sort of clawing at it (laughing). Anyway, that
was good and then we went into the other room, and there were about
10 of his really, really close friends around and we felt so awkward
(laughing). We were just standing around, but then we ended up having
a really great time! The food was great because he had bought it from
Hackney Market, so there were really nice meats and stuff, and we met
some really nice people. We met this man who used to be in this garage
band – The Horrors worship him and he didn’t stop talking
about The Horrors – he was like 50 or something, and he was an
indie artist from The ‘80s, well, mainly garage punk…”
Robbie: “Have you got to type this up (looking at me)? The article’s
going to be pages and pages, it will be massive (laughing)!”
Daniel: “Oh right, sorry, this will finish Chapter 1 (laughing)!
Then we took him in the car to the pub, because I was meeting some friends
there later – it was so good! But yeah, that was definitely the
best party that I’ve ever been to (smiling)!”
8.Each week, The Culture Show has a busking challenge, whereby musicians
and bands have to play a selection of their songs to passers by, to
see how much money they can make. But if you had to play some Cajun
Dance Party tracks and a cover version, what would they be?
Robbie: “I would play No Joanna, a new song which might be called
Train Song, and Stephanie Says by The Velvet Underground…”
Daniel: “No, Big Star - Thirteen…”
Robbie: “You can do Big Star - Thirteen.”
Daniel: “It’s the whole band though.”
Robbie: “You could do it separately then, because I would play
Stephanie Says.”
Daniel: “You probably wouldn’t do Stephanie Says, because
we would have a big discussion with the band…”
Robbie: “And you would manipulate everyone into doing it (laughing).”
Daniel: “No, we’d probably agree on doing Big Star - Thirteen,
because Stephanie Says would be too risky as it’s so good! And
you wouldn’t want to touch it. So, we would probably do Big Star
- Thirteen, not Stephanie Says (laughing). We probably wouldn’t
do Train Song, we’d do No Joanna…”
Robbie: “Both (laughing)!”
9.When playing live, do you feel a synergy between the band and the
audience?
Robbie: “Yeah, I do! I’m sure it’s different for everyone
and I’m sure everyone has got their own individual take on it…”
Daniel: “I reckon that’s what happens most of the time. The
thing is, when you’re playing bigger venues, it’s harder to
gauge, but we’re still playing really small venues, so it’s
really good because it’s just you and your fans in a little room.
It’s the best (smiling)!”
Robbie: “When you do an arena, like when we went to Japan and played
the Summer Sonic Festival, you almost feel like you’re playing
on a stage that’s a little island, because you’re so far away
from people.”
10.If you could have been at any gig in the history of music, which
one would you have most liked to have attended?
Daniel & Robbie: “Ooh (long pause + thinking)…”
Robbie: “I would have liked to have been at The Trout Quintet at
the Royal Festival Hall – that would’ve been mine!”
Daniel: “It’s really difficult to know, to think of the one
that you would have most liked to have attended (thinking). I would’ve
definitely liked to have seen one of the Neil Young shows at Massey
Hall. I have the recording of it, but it would have been amazing to
have been there!”
Robbie: “Dylan at The Troubadour Club, that would have been amazing!”
Daniel: “But Neil Young’s better (laughing)!”
11.How do you find life on the road / touring?
Daniel: “I really like it – it’s a nice life! It’s
been so good, because if we hadn’t been in the band, we wouldn’t
have seen so much of England. Me and Robbie were talking about this
in Manchester, because people in general do see other parts of England
because they have family living in different areas. But in a band, you
just travel everywhere and it’s nice to see all of the little pockets
– I quite like that. And we’re going to Europe, which is so
good! Going to Japan is really good as well, just in itself – not
musically – we’re pretty lucky to be doing these things. It’s
part of the job, so that’s really weird.”
12.Do you have any favourite Websites that you would recommend to
us, and to date, what’s the best YouTube clip that you’ve
seen?
Daniel: “allmusic.com is my favourite website – if you want
to find out about album credits, like who produced what and stuff, it’s
amazing! But they’ve given all of my favourite albums really high
ratings out of 5 – it’s a really accurate and useful resource.
My favourite YouTube clip is Binocular Football. It’s basically
a Japanese football match, but they’ve got binoculars strapped
to their eyes and they can’t see the ball, so they’re just
kicking (laughing), they don’t have any perspective!”
Robbie: “I don’t really go on the Internet very much…”
Daniel: “That’s a lie (laughing).”
Robbie: “No, I don’t. If I had a favourite YouTube clip though,
it would probably be The Smiths playing Barbarism Begins At Home, because
during the outro Johnny Marr puts down in his guitar, and it’s
just him and Morrissey dancing together for about 10 minutes –
the tension between them is amazing! It’s just them dancing with
the rhythm section rocking-out, it’s hilarious (laughing)!”
13.A lot of CDP’s songs have a real dream-like quality, but
have you ever had a recurring dream?
Daniel: “I used to have so many recurring dreams, but they were
really weird, because they were all about space and meteors (laughing)!
I think there was one about a finger-clicking factory as well, or something
really weird – I always got them when I was ill, when I was younger.
They weren’t scary, but I can remember thinking that they were
really scary at the time. They were just odd concepts – I wish
I could remember them, it’s really annoying.”
Robbie: “I’ve not had any recurring dreams recently, but when
I was young, I used to dream about robot dinosaurs that were going to
kidnap me (laughing).”
14.If you could ask a musical hero anything, who would it be and
what would you ask them?
Daniel: “I’d ask Bonnie Prince Billy if he could be my friend
and if we could go swimming together (laughing).”
Robbie: “I’d like to sit in a room with Björk for about
half-an-hour and just listen to her talk about anything!”
Daniel: “You’d like to (inaudible).”
Robbie: “No (both laugh hysterically).”
Daniel: “You should definitely say that (laughing)!”
Robbie: “No, it’s not being said (laughing)!”
15.As solo artists, Lennon & McCartney were always known to keep
a close eye on what each other was doing musically. But are there any
specific artists / bands that you use as a musical yardstick?
Robbie: “Not really as a yardstick, no. I don’t think we look
at other bands to see what they come up with in a competitive way. I
always follow Bombay Bicycle Club and what they’re doing, just
because they’re friends of mine and I’ve made music with the
singer in the past. So, I keep an eye on them just out of sheer interest
because I’m a fan.”
Daniel: “I’m probably the same and also WayOutWest –
Late Of The Pier, Video Nasties – they’re the best –
and even stuff like Laura Marling. Because when we all started and had
our first proper gigs, it was at WayOutWest and it’s just nice
to see how all of those people have progressed, what they’re doing
and how everyone’s following their own paths now.”
16.Do you have a favourite chord / chord sequence, and are melodies,
rhythms, grooves, beats etc. equally as important to you?
Robbie: “I don’t have a favourite chord, but I’ve probably
got favourite sequences within various songs and I think for me, harmonies
are more important than melodies, rhythms, grooves and beats.”
*Robbie has to leave the interview to soundcheck, but Daniel kindly
agrees to answer my remaining questions*
17.Is it difficult letting your songs go, and if by magic you were able
to hear your own songs with fresh ears, do you think that you’d
appreciate the nuances in Cajun Dance Party’s music?
“It’s pretty difficult knowing when to put a stop on it. Obviously,
with things like mixing, you could go on forever. But songwriting-wise,
with stuff like lyrics, you could always change words, so it’s
difficult to know – it’s normally better if you stop as soon
as possible, otherwise, you lose the original sense of it. So, it can
be really difficult. I can’t really answer the other part of your
question (pausing), it’s weird, because you respond to what people’s
reactions to the music is. Like when you come to the venues, they have
a little write-up about the band – like yesterday, we were in Cardiff
and it described us as “Indie MySpace Cats.” There was a bit
of vomit in our mouths when we entered the venue and saw that. But then
today, it compared us to Orange Juice and The Smiths and obviously,
you much prefer that (laughing)! Everyone really liked it and was like,
“Yeah, that’s a much better description!” That’s
just obvious, but you never know what to expect, especially with the
first album (pausing), because when it was written, I had no idea what
we were doing and I hadn’t listened to much music, and I didn’t
know what I wanted to achieve musically.”
18.A new physical music format called ‘slotMusic’, which
allows people to buy music that has been preloaded onto SanDisk Memory
Cards and can be played on a variety of different platforms, is soon
to be launched. Do you think it’s likely to take off?
“I don’t understand that, because if people are interested
in owning something tangible, art is the only material that people should
be interested in – like a CD or vinyl. Vinyl’s the best, because
it’s a piece of art and what’s so great about iTunes, is that
music becomes something more that just another material possession.
People can say, “iTunes makes music less romantic because you’re
not putting on a vinyl.” But, I think it makes it more romantic
in some ways, because it’s like, “What is it? What do you
own?” It’s just a pure track, it’s not like, “Look
at my CD collection!” And I think that there’s some beauty
in that, that doesn’t ever get talked about and I like that. But
at the same time, I love LPs because the artist and musician can present
their work in the context of a beautiful piece of art. A Memory Card,
what the fuck is that? That’s just a disgusting piece of plastic,
which doesn’t help either of those things that I was talking about.
I don’t think it’s going to make people buy more music –
I don’t care, I don’t want people to buy music, it would just
be good if people listened to good music!”
19.Continuing with this train of thought, I really love the photography
used on your single sleeves – can you tell us more about this?
“I’m happy that you asked about that, just because I’m
obsessed with photography! I did an A-Level in photography and I really
enjoyed that, but when we first started getting into photo shoots and
stuff, people would come in with these digital cameras and take the
most bland photos ever. Because in The ’60s and ‘70s, there
were so many different cameras available, but now, there are only a
handful of brands and they all take the same pictures – you open
up a music magazine and they all look exactly the same. I love photography,
music and everything being like this whole world – I love that!
Just being absorbed in the whole art side of it and I think it’s
really important (pausing), our videos haven’t achieved that at
all – I think our videos are awful, apart from the last one we
did for Colourful Life, which I really like. The photographer we worked
with on our fourth single sleeve is called Jon Bergman, he’s Scandinavian
and is quite a classic photographer, he uses old medium format cameras
and he takes beautiful photos. I think a lot of other bands have started
using him now, but I always want to use him, because it sort of just
connected with us. I actually took the third single sleeve myself and
I try to do as much photography as possible, for the website and stuff
like that. I’m sort of lucky, because even if I’m not good
enough at photography (laughing), I’ve still got a platform to
use it practically (smiling)! But I’m really into the relationship
between music and the visual side of music, because I think it adds
so much to it. It’s like with promo videos at the moment, you know
that people want to see the band and all that stuff, and that coincides
with the whole world that we live in today, which is about personality
and celebrity. It’s not about art, which it should be and which
is what it used to be about. So I hope in the future, our videos will
be less disgusting in that way. The Colourful Life one was made for
£200 and even the one that looks really posh and high-budget,
that was made pretty cheaply, but it just doesn’t appeal to me.”
20.Are there any songs that you think should have been worldwide
smash hits?
“It’s weird, because when songs are smash hits, nowadays,
they’re played loads and it’s really annoying (laughing)!
So I want to be in control of the songs and if I really love a song,
I try not to listen to it over and over and over again, because I know
that I’m just going to get sick of it. So I save it for special
times (smiling). But yeah, I do think there are some songs that deserve
to get played, compared to a lot of the stuff that does.”
21.Is there an artist’s / group’s body of work, that you think
would lend itself to either a film soundtrack, or day I say it, a musical?
“I don’t really enjoy musicals (laughing), but I think After
The Gold Rush by Neil Young was supposed to be made for a film. Apparently,
he was trying to write a film and nobody wanted to make the film, but
they wanted to use the soundtrack. I would’ve liked to have seen
that.”
22.Do you think the Arts Council ‘Take It Away’ scheme, “To
help you to buy an instrument with an interest-free loan” is a
positive step for young, up-and-coming musicians?
“That’s such a good idea! Because you can write amazing songs
(pausing), you just need one guitar, you don’t need loads of equipment.
But if a young musician can get help to buy their first instrument,
that can only help increase the amount of quality music being created
in this country, which is what we need!”
23.And with so many new bands constantly springing up, do you think
it would be a good thing if there were more mainstream music TV shows
dedicated to promoting young talent?
“I don’t know? Jools Holland is good, I’ve watched that
a couple of times, but I’m not a big TV watcher personally. I think
it would be quite good, because people are interested in watching music
on TV and music channels are good but (pausing), I don’t know?
It depends, because sometimes The Charts can be irrelevant, because
there’s so much new music, so it’s difficult to generalise
and say, “These are the band’s that people should be watching!”
Especially when there’s YouTube and you can watch whatever you
want – even if it’s not very popular, there’s always
something on there. But I suppose more mainstream music TV shows would
be a good thing.”
24.What are your biggest hopes for Cajun Dance Party, and do you
see your sound evolving in the future?
“The thing about our music evolving, is that I only want it to
evolve if it’s natural. Because with some bands who do something
well, you don’t necessarily want them to change direction, as there
are so many different bands who can do different things. But, I think
our second record will sound completely different and whether that’s
a good thing or not, the main thing is that it’s natural. I’m
happy for my musical tastes to change, as long as I’m excited about
the music that we’re currently working on.”
25.A recent article in The Guardian entitled ‘Class War On The
Dancefloor’, discussed how The Enemy’s Tom Clarke once “berated
rival bands whose backgrounds he considered to border on the aristocratic.”
What are your feelings on this?
“I’m not saying anything bad about other bands, but I think
statements like that are disgusting. Because it’s talking about
something which is just completely irrelevant to music. Our class has
been talked about in articles and it’s been complete bullshit!
I mean people can assume stuff, but we’ve never talked about it,
so how will people know and why should people care. Because music is
music, but some people do get carried away with music being political
and blah, blah, blah. But really, that just shouldn’t just come
into it. I can understand why people are attracted to bands because
of a class or if they’re singing about certain things, that’s
great! But I don’t think all bands should do that – there
should be diversity! I’m sure there are other bands who were originally
seen like that, but then they become successful like The Streets for
example. I think it’s amazing how he wrote his third album about
being really rich and famous, because if he hadn’t, it would have
been disingenuous rubbish. If people want to listen to him singing about
urban life, then they should listen to the first two albums – don’t
expect him to keep coming out with it. It’s all about being genuine
I think, because there are so many people who want to give music and
have music to offer, and if they’re genuine, then that’s the
best thing!”
26.Lastly, chips or cream buns?
“Oh my gosh, probably chips… with a nice sauce (laughing)!”
A very special thanks to Daniel, Robbie, Vicky, Max
and Will, and to Cajun Dance Party’s Manager Alun + Tour Manager
Alex, for all of their time and help.
www.cajundanceparty.com
www.myspace.com/cajundanceparty
“High up in the sky, in the colourful life
My light will reappear, when they keep it on
To hear my songs”
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usicm
the 3rd album?