The Dandy Warhols – Interview

Dandy’s drummer Brent de Boer talks the talk.

Now what is the deal with you riding a unicycle for fans before a show?

I don’t really know why I know how to do that. I had some friends who had them and have always been good on bikes and stuff.

I didn’t even know, but the record has already been released overseas?

It has.

I must be the Sinatra releases holding it back like Courtney says.

Probably.

Is it just marketing or what?

I think its just a matter of logistics, it might be Sinatra. We want to tour around the album and we are excited to just get it out. But we have to be where it is being released so I guess that is why.

How would you compare the fans overseas?

The first thing is the shows are larger because we are bigger overseas. They know the songs well and we are more in the press. Our fans are the same over the world, they dress similar, watch the same movies, and have similar hairstyles. You could take a snapshot of our fans in Stockholm and one in Tampa and they’d look similar.

Is it weird that you are bigger over there than here? Why do you think the music is bigger overseas than here?

I think our experience is quite similar to everyone’s experience that goes overseas, just rocking out.

What is it like going into recording a record with the anticipation?

It’s great. The only pressure, the only thing we are concentrating on is making a great record. We hope people will hear it. We could release a record and no one buys it. But the main thing is that you will have to hear it the rest of your life. If it’s awful you can’t live with it. The fact that others hear it is great.

Do you approach each record the same, with different producers?

Some songs are ready and some are barely there and they need a lot of work going into the studio. Some get invented in the studio. Courtney writes the songs and has chords, rhythms, and lyrics. We add some color into the songs with drums and guitar. But generally Courtney comes in with a lot of songs. He doesn’t sit down and write song, he channels them and waits for them to show up. He will just write them down and record them.

What is it like when he brings a song in and its bare?

He lives right downstairs from me and I get these calls like ‘hey fathead check this out’ and I hear the guitar over the phone and he asks ‘can you hear that’, ‘yeah I can hear it’. But usually you can tell right away if it’s good or not. Sometimes he only has a few words. But I think ‘awe man I’m going to play this song a thousand times’. (laughs)

What was it like working with Nick Rhodes? Why did you choose him?

We didn’t really choose him, he chose us. We heard he was a big fan and our webmaster had a video tape of Planet Earth and we were watching it in the studio one day and it was great. We knew we had to get him into the studio, but we couldn’t let him in our studio because it was a mess. We went to him, he was working with his band and he had a studio across the hall for Duran Duran so he went back and forth. It was beautiful. He’s such a cool guy?

Did he influence the songs?

He did influence it, but we had most of it done before we met with him. It sounded like it was almost done when we met with him and we finished it with him. I went back and rerecorded half the drums in London with him. It was great. We’d do a whole bunch of songs in one take. We would play the songs to the lyrics and bass line. So much had happened since I first laid the drums down. It sounds big and full. It’s raw, but not lo-fi. He has a great sense of style.

You guys have so much experience, but that guy…

…It’s great to be in the studio with someone who spends so much time in the studio.

You have worked with producers, but are they different to work with someone who has been in your position, he has both perspectives.

It must help. It was so smooth. A lot of times you get into a studio with a lot of egos around and feelings get hurt. Someone might say ‘well I don’t like the way this sounds’ and arms will get folded and noses will get turned up and doors might get slammed. Time is wasted. It doesn’t happen often, but it can. We had great lines of communications with Nick and he was never like that.

Duran Duran is a band that hasn’t really left the art behind or the fundamentals of writing good songs.

They are great musicians and artists.

Is there a goal you with your records?

Every song Courtney comes up with we record. He won’t bring a song that isn’t cool. He brings it, we track and rock it. We do one song at a time. Each song is an individual project. We don’t use the same mics, guitars, and keyboards. Each song is its own little puzzle and we keep noodling with them until everyone stands up and hugs ‘yeah, hand me a brewski’.

I heard this release will have some extra songs on it.

I laid some vocals on some songs that I wish was on the first pressing. It’ll be on every pressing we do for now on, but we have to sell like 500,000 for anyone to get it. I just cross my fingers they get out there.

Will that inspire you to do some shameless self-promotion to get the sales up?

(Laughs) We’ll do everything we can but it sounds so good. It’s so cool. It should have been on the record, but we never thought of it or got it right until we did about fifty concerts.

Did you write the songs?

It is a part I came up with, it’s on “Used To Be Friends” chorus.

Speaking of buying it, how are the fans?

We don’t have too many scary fans. They are mostly cool. We don’t really have many groupies, but we aren’t your average baseball cap wearing rock band. We don’t get too many yahoos. They do get fired up. I had a hug line in Sydney. A girl saw me and asked for a hug and I didn’t know she had ten friends and I told them queue up.

Is it a metal thing with the groupies or what?

Courtney and I before the shows we go out, have some drinks and chit-chat with people. After the show we head out with twenty or fifty people and find out where we can have some drinks. We’ll occupy the corner of a bar until it closes and then go to the hotel bar and just gab all night.

Does it make it a lot more fun doing that rather then locking your self up like most bands? It seems most bands meet fans for PR reasons.

We really just like to hang out with our gang all over the world.

Is there any other feeling in the world like being on stage?

No.

Does it ever get old?

That feeling never gets old, but it can get old in ten minutes if you can’t hear anything and its hell. But we’ve been lucky on this tour because everything has been good mechanicals.

I think everyone dreams of being onstage, did you dream of that growing up?

I used to stand in my window on this cul-de-sac pretending I was standing in front of thousands of people and just air guitaring. I got a drumset when I was six. That’s all I thought about. I took about five or six years off thinking about it from 8th grade until my senior year because I did other things. But most my life I was obsessed with it.

Who were you with the air guitar?

Lennon or McCartney, or Paul Simon

Final hopes for the record?

For it to sell two or three million more copies than the Dark Side Of The Moon. (We both laugh) That’s not going to happen so you sit in the studio and make the coolest record you can make.

+ Charlie Craine