WOMADelaide 2010: Dean and Britta Interview

We recently spent some time with legendary Dean & Britta and quizzed them about their imminent trip to Australia….

DFS: Can you tell us what we can expect from your WOMADelaide shows?

Well we are doing a couple of different shows. The Andy Warhol Screen Test show is a multi-media show, featuring us and our band performing songs beneath a screen showing short silent films by Andy Warhol. This was a commission we received from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, to write and perform songs specifically for the Screen Tests – 4-minute portrait films that Warhol filmed between 1964 and 1966. People rarely get a chance to see these beautiful films on a big screen, and with the live accompaniment I think it’s a really special show. And one of our WOMADelaide shows will just be a Dean & Britta set, which generally includes some songs by Luna and Galaxie 500 too.

DFS What’s the attraction for you to be performing at such a festival?

Well this is an unusual place for the Warhol show, it will be the first time it has been done at a music festival.

DFS From recorded tracks to live shows, can you give us a sense of what its like on stage to translate your performance for a live crowd?

Dean: Well it’s always a tricky period after you record an album – you try to play the songs live and learn that some of them are easy to play and some are not. So you do the ones that work. And at this point I have a lot of old songs that people seem to want to hear, so I have to work those in too.

DFS As an example, a track like “Your Baby can’t stand the rain” has an unconventional combination of acoustic and a little bit of electro, why did you choose to sequence this track the way you did?

Britta wrote that song, and the first thing she recorded was a sequenced bass track out of a Yamaha QY70. It has sort of a jazzy feel, despite coming out of a sequencer, and Britta sings it beautifully. But then Sonic Boom came in to do a remix, and added the sound of the rain, which was great idea – he is an expert with the sound effects and tremolos and drones.

DFS Do you set limits as to how far you will explore electronic music?

Not consciously . . . I’m not the kind of artist who makes rules for himself, it’s more about what a given song requires. But while I am not opposed to electronica, and certainly use drum machines and whatnot, I have to say I feel more comfortable on stage with actual human beings. And I don’t find it very interesting to watch a couple of guys sitting on stage playing with laptops.

DFS What did Tony Visconti bring to the studio?

Stories, lessons in the Alexander technique, his skills on the stand-up bass and as an arranger, mellotron samples. Most producers are either engineers or musicians, Tony has all the skills. We loved working with him.

DFS Which of your songs evoke the most personal emotional response?

I probably get more emotionally involved singing cover versions than singing my own songs, or maybe if I perform a song that I haven’t visited in ten years, that can be an emotional experience too, like revisiting a part of my life that I had put away.

DFS If music tells a story, what are some of the narratives present within your music?

The usual subjects of pop lyrics are there – so many songs are of course framed as love songs, sung by one person to another. But at least half of the time I’m not concerned with narrative. Or maybe it’s a very short narriative – like what I saw out the window today.

DFS Other than when you’re busy recording or performing it, how much do you listen to your own music?

Only on special nights. I hadn’t listened to the Galaxie 500 albums for some years, till we had them remastered for vinyl last year and I had to check them out. I enjoyed that.

DFS Which of the other WOMADelaide 2010 acts are you looking forward to seeing play?

Ravi Shankar of course.

DFS What are you looking forward to when visiting Adelaide?

Dean: I’m just glad to finally make it to Adelaide. I lived in Sydney as a child (from 1970 to 1977), and in1974 we set off on a family car trip to that city. Unfortunately we got in a car crash outside of Melbourne and never made it any further.