Category: Music

Bourbon and bad acid

Loud, fast and slightly out of tune, the new EP from Tango & Snatch is a squeaky old farm truck sprinting perilously down the back roads of hillbilly country under a moonless sky.

Such will be the legacy of Tango’s front man Ziad Samman, who after four years in the Kingdom is finally moving on. On June 21, the Australian native returns to Hong Kong with a sack full of tales and what’s left of his sanity.

“Cambodia has been a wild ride,” the 27-year-old guitar player says, christening the sunset with his first bourbon and Coke of the evening. “I feel like I have post-traumatic stress.”

Four years ago Samman took over day-to-day operations at the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity, a group that helps victims of acid attacks with legal, medical and emotional support. Samman often met victims in the hours after their assault and followed them through years of recovery. “It can be a very lengthy process, so you really get to know people.”

A bass player since his teenage years, Samman turned to music to help ease the job’s heavy emotional trip. “I needed a release and for me the best way to do that was to channel it into the music.”

He picked up a no-name acoustic six-string from a shop near Central Market and began learning. “I’d come home and it would be dark, late and I’d be buggered,” he recalls, stubbing another cigarette into the ashtray. “That’s when I really learned how to play guitar. I just sat in my room and played. I wrote and recorded like 300 songs.”

It was a crude set-up, just the guitar and a laptop, and most of what he recorded was junk. “Out of all of those songs, out of hours of material I had recorded, there was probably like a good half hour that you were like ‘oh, that’s all right.’ The rest was dog shit.” But it didn’t matter. The music kept him sane.

Then his laptop got stolen. It seemed like a disaster. But possessed with the same unstoppable determination that he infused into the charity, Samman tossed his guitar over his shoulder and headed down to open mic night at Paddy Rice, determined to keep playing. He met Melanie Brew, a rock ‘n’ roll kindred spirit, and the pair immediately connected. Tango & Snatch was born the next week with Samman on guitar and Brew on drums. Bass player Kate Liana joined the band about nine months ago, and the trio hit the studio in March to record the group’s second and presumably final album.

Snagglepuss is unlikely to win any awards. Recorded “live” in the studio, the sound is raw and unvarnished, devoid of the post-production polish typical of a properly mastered effort. The album’s eight tracks took just four hours to finish.

Compared to the band’s first album, Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine Deathmatch, the songs on Snagglepuss are generally faster and mark a subtle yet noticeable shift away from Deathmatch’s straight-ahead rockabilly sound toward something more in the spirit of the Sex Pistols or The Clash.

On the album’s second track, The River Song, Samman’s distorted guitars and raspy vocals are reminiscent of early Nirvana, and the song sets the tone for the rest of the album – a wild, full-throttle midnight ride through cow pastures of angst.

On Street 178, brooding guitars and dark vocals crescendo in coarse, raspy wails.

I been drinking all night and day
Make this feeling go away
Looks like it is here to stay for a while

“I’m not a singer,” Samman says. “I don’t have a pretty sounding voice, [so] I’m probably better off working with what I do well, which is sort of like snarl.”

The snarl works and Snagglepuss, like Kentucky bourbon, definitely gets better with age. Each listen seems to sand the sharp edges into something smoother yet more potent.

Download Snagglepuss and Rock ‘n’ Roll Machine Deathmatch at: http://artefracture.bandcamp.com/.

Concrete cowboy

BY PHOENIX JAY

Stetsons and spurs are hardly common sights in the British midlands, yet the post-industrial landscape of Stoke-on-Trent – more commonly associated with football hooligans – has somehow spawned this thoughtful, softly spoken country singer clad in jeans, plaid shirt and, yes, a slightly battered cowboy hat. Joe Wrigley, the 33-year-old former bass player from “now moderately successful indie band” Fists, talks quiffs, cowboy credentials and writing odes to Johnny Cash.

As a small child you were sent to your aunt for singing lessons, but she nixed the whole idea on the spot. And yet here you are. Have you considered suing?

[Laughs] I love my auntie! To be fair, I couldn’t sing – in a normal, classical sense. Over time I managed to evoke some kind of voice which ended up being quite different. The songs I like and can sing happen to be country songs, because they lend themselves to a thin, nasally voice: Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Johnny Cash. I wrote a song about Johnny Cash, that simplicity and rawness; that’s what I always wanted to sound like. I knew I could do simple, direct songs, stuff from the heart, but not flowery songs. Definitely Hank Williams.

When did you start wearing the cowboy hat? You’d get beaten up for that in your native Stoke-on-Trent, surely.

[Laughs] I did have cowboy boots and a hat when I was 18, studying in Nottingham. I dropped politics to do an HND in music. It was a war of attrition: 26 people started the course; six people finished it! But the decision to make music my mainstay didn’t happen until after I arrived in Asia. I started gigging in Thailand on Koh Samui, but there wasn’t much of a music scene there, so I Googled ‘music scene in Asia’ and up comes Phnom Penh – with a rockabilly band called Tango & Snatch, and Grass Snake Union? That sounds interesting. I came for a week and people kindly gave me gigs, just from an email, so I decided to stay. That was it! This is more than just a good place to be: it’s the reason I’m happy now.

Have you rubbed Stetsons with some of the other roots-Americana artists here yet?

I got here too late to see [the now defunct] Grass Snake Union or Tango & Snatch, but I really like Ziad [Samman] and his Two Shots & A Chaser. They’re really good. The guy who connected us is RJ Marshall, who’s very much country and sings in a country voice. They call it ‘Americana’, but it’s a postmodern mixture.

And we have The Wanderlusters here this weekend, too – 21st century hillbillies from New Orleans via Saigon, no less. The Wild West seems to be picking up and moving wholesale to Asia – and everyone loves it.

It’s because everybody recognises it, it’s fun for random people who want to see live music and it’s quite easy music to play. Same for punk; not the same for jazz. My ratio of covers to original songs is two to one, but I’m getting more originals. A lot of the covers are things people wouldn’t recognise anyway, like a Jimmy Rogers song or a Hank Williams song. I found out I can sing Buddy Holly as well, so I’m looking for people for a Buddy Holly tribute band! [Laughs] Unfortunately, though, I’ve cut all my hair off. I used to have a quiff.

Me too! Let’s talk about your original stuff.

I’m starting to learn more about where I am, so I’ve started to write about that a little bit. I’ll play you one in a sec. I wrote a song called Shiva recently, which is trying to get at some of the darkness of this place. My writing’s quite figurative; a little abstract. There is a lot of love songs, a couple of funny songs and a couple of songs that are so vague I don’t even know what they’re about yet, to be honest.

STOP! Are you really wearing a cowboy hat with a plaid shirt and white plimsolls?!

[Laughs] Where can I get cowboy boots in Cambodia?

I bet you’ve never chewed dip, either.

Sorry?

Chewing tobacco! Cowboys keep a wad of it jammed between their cheek and gum, periodically spitting on your shoes, from what I remember of my time in Oklahoma.

Umm… No.

Driven a pick-up truck? Lassoed a horse? Kept your boots on in bed? Good grief. So how would you define a 21st century cowboy?

A throwback to a more simple, direct way of being: it’s just music; nothing else for me.

And finally, where DID you get that hat?

[Laughs] I bought it in Siem Reap about six years ago for six dollars! Do you want to hear some songs? I’d never say this was a song about Cambodia, but it’s inspired by the darkness you find here… [Picks up Ovation guitar and launches into Shiva]

Moonshine & mountain men

‘A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.’ – New York Journal, 1900

When the American frontier ploughed West following the Civil War, it left in its wake a region frozen in time. The Appalachians – until that point on a par with the rest of the country, socially and technologically – fell into a deep slumber, becoming synonymous to the outside world with backwardness, inbreeding and the kind of ultra-violence depicted so chillingly in 1972 thriller Deliverance.

This hillbilly stereotype – fuelled by stories of murderous mountain feuds, such as those between the Hatfield and McCoy clans in the late 19th century – was also synonymous with something else: the toe-tappin’, fast-fiddlin’ folksy sound that would eventually become country music. And from obscure roots in the mountains of 19th century Appalachia that sound – the sound of the Wild West – is today being shipped wholesale to Southeast Asia.

The Wanderlusters, here for a two-night tour, are Ho Chi Minh City’s resident hillbillies. Founded by Davis Zunk, an Ohio-born drummer who spent his formative musical years in New Orleans, they’re a glorious knee-slapping nod to bygone times. Dressed in sombre frontier garb, these would-be mountain men – distinguishable from their forefathers by noticeably better dentistry – eschew the fripperies of the global age in favour of good ol’-fashioned values. Provided it’s after 6pm.

“I don’t look like a hillbilly around the house,” says Zunk. “Only after dark. I get clothing made over here – that’s one of the beauties of living in Asia. I pull stuff off the internet – turn-of-the-century cowboy stuff. In Asia if you say ‘bluegrass’ that doesn’t really mean anything, but if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, everyone knows what a cowboy is. That’s the reason for the hats, to have some kind of identity. Otherwise you say ‘bluegrass’ and people are, like, ‘What?’ But point to the hat and you get ‘Oh, yeah: cowboy!’”

But American roots music, despite its faraway beginnings, is taking firm hold. “A lot like the original music was, hillbilly is kind of new here because it’s been repressed for so long. Since I started coming to Vietnam in 2005, the differences I’ve seen – there’s a little more freedom; people are expressing themselves more. And the energy of the young people in Asia is really cool. We’ve been playing at this one club and it’s full of 20-year-old Vietnamese. While you’re playing they just kind of sit there and stare at you, but then when you’ve finished they start clapping and cheering. It’s still conservative – the government’s very conservative – but it’s starting to turn the other way. The people aren’t like they used to be.”

Touching on everything from jazz and gospel to blues and rock ‘n’ roll but with their hearts belonging to bluegrass, The Wanderlusters have so far produced two albums, the first being 2011’s Midnight Breeze. The latest will be ready by the time they land in Phnom Penh and is called Khong Say Khong Ve, a Vietnamese expression which translates as ‘Don’t go home until you’re drunk.’ On it, traditional Vietnamese instruments weave between piano, accordion and drums. “The dan bau is my favourite: a one-stringed instrument with a sort of whammy bar and a cool, surrealistic type of sound,” says Zunk. “Next is the dan nhi, a two-stringed violin. Third is a bamboo xylophone. And we used a famous musician, Thuy Nguyen, from an all-girls traditional Vietnamese band called Mot Troi Moi.”

Lyrically, both albums draw heavily on The Wanderlusters’ ‘ragtag expat lives in exotic Southeast Asia’. “The inspiration for Bamboo Hotline came from a buddy of mine who has lived in Southeast Asia for some 20-odd years,” says Zunk. One day he gave the secretary from his office a ride home from work and before he arrived home to his wife 30 minutes later she’d already heard the news. This was pre-cell phone or even house phone days. Bamboo Hotline describes the speed in which information (mostly gossip) spreads among the community. As big, goofy-looking white guys who stick out like turds in a punchbowl, we’re a constant source of intrigue, scandal and gossip for the locals.

“Troubled Man is a bit more serious of a tune. A lot of friends of mine died unexpectedly and way too young this year. I sing it from a male point of view but I was actually thinking of how my friend’s wife will feel a year from now on the anniversary of his death. He was only 36; he had a heart attack while hiking and leaves behind two young children. He was a boisterous, fun-loving guy who was always the life of the party and a great friend loved by many. The hallucinating part was inspired by my grandma, who used to call my dad by her husband’s name when she was very old. Even though she outlived my grandpa by 20 years, she still thought of him daily. Drinking to the point of hallucinating is one way of coping with loss.”

Underpinning every tune is skilled musicianship, the kind Zunk attributes to his time spent in New Orleans. “I wouldn’t be the same person – or the same musician – if I hadn’t gone there. Nowhere else, at least in America, has that music culture. In New Orleans, if someone gets married there’s music. If someone dies there’s music. If there’s a holiday, there’s music. You can walk down the street and there’s kids waiting for the bus, playing drums on the mailbox. There’s this radio station that plays only New Orleans music all day, every day. I had a radio in every room of my house and I’m not the only one; most people in New Orleans are like that. When you live there, the rest of the world doesn’t matter; it doesn’t exist.”

As you might expect of cowboys, the band – allegedly the only one in Vietnam to have killed someone with a shovel , although this has yet to be confirmed – comes with a caveat: “Some members are wanted by the law, others by jealous husbands and some have just plain ‘gone missing’ over the years. Be forewarned: lock up your daughters and wives!”

Ghosts of films gone but not forgotten

The gods of cinema must be smiling: just days after a Cambodian documentary won the second-most important competition at the Cannes film festival, Dengue Fever is to headline at the Memory Heritage Festival here in Phnom Penh – the first of its kind anywhere in Asia.

Rithy Panh, 49, used small clay figures to tell the story of how his family was murdered by the Khmer Rouge in his winning Cannes entry, L’Image Manquante (‘The Missing Picture’). The filmmaker, whose work focuses on the brutality inflicted on his homeland between 1975 and 1979, told Reuters: “For a country that has emerged from its difficulties and years of war, it is important to say we are still alive.”

His words could not be more poignant: of the 350-plus films produced during the revered ‘Golden Age’ of Cambodian cinema in the 1960s, before Pol Pot brutally dialled the country back to ‘Year Zero’, only about 10% have survived. Of the casts and crews, fewer still escaped the Killing Fields. Now, in a bid to resurrect the ghosts of films gone but not forgotten, Cambodia’s foremost audiophiles and cinephiles are joining forces to produce Asia’s first celebration of film heritage.

Dubbed the Memory Heritage Festival, the event – entry to which is free throughout – spans nine days (June 1 – 9); more than 40 classic films from around the world (all subtitled); two exhibitions; a special tribute to film by the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk; a cine-concert with Dengue Fever; conferences and encounters with international cinema heritage experts; a dedicated youth programme and the showcasing of original 35mm screening equipment at Chaktomuk Theatre.

“After the Khmer Rouge, they sometimes replaced films with these little photo novels, which we’ll show at the Bophana Centre during the festival,” says Marie-Josée Blanchard, a volunteer at the centre which, along with the Technicolour Foundation, organised the celebrations. “They were very popular during the ’60s and ’70s. Sometimes they’d have pictures; other times they just drew the images and they’d have text to go with them. It’s like an old comic book, you know? Right after the Khmer Rouge, we didn’t quite have the technology or the resources to produce films. For a few years, people at least had these to replace films, but there’s still so little left.

“We aim especially at the younger generation of Cambodians. We want them to discover a new type of image and sound that they’re not used to – they’re always on iPhones or iPads, you know what it’s like. That’s why we have 35mm dual projectors being installed at Chaktomuk. You don’t see those very often these days, and they’re going to stay there after the festival. We hope to train people in how to use them. We want young people to discover this type of film: the quality and the sound is not quite the same as they’re used to.”

Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based sextet who take ’60s Cambodian psyche rock and stuff it through a blender, are today the stuff of music legend. The Kinks’ Ray Davies hailed them “a cross between Led Zeppelin and Blondie”; Matt Dillon asked them to record a Cambodian version of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now for his directorial debut City Of Ghosts, and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett picked One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula – homage to Ros Sereysothea, forced by the Khmer Rouge to strip naked and sing under the merciless Cambodian Sun until she dropped dead from exhaustion – for the number two slot on his Rolling Stone magazine Best Music Of The Decade ballot.

On June 5 at Koh Pich (‘Diamond Island’), the band will perform alongside French VJ Alexandre Elkouby. “The really cool thing about Dengue Fever is we’re having a cine-concert,” says Blanchard. “The VJ will mix classic films on a giant screen while they’re playing.” Dengue Fever are also due to present a special screening of Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, a documentary by John Pirozzi that charts their first visit to Cambodia – the native home of lead singer Chhom Nimol – as a band back in 2005.

 

Roll over, Beethoven

Julian Lawrence Gargiulo has what is perhaps one of the most unpronounceable biographies in history. This magnificently coiffed Italian-American composer/pianist/stand-up comedian studied at the Verona State Conservatory with Aureliana Randone; the Mugi Academy in Rome with Aldo Ciccolini; the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Mezhlumov and under Veda Zuponcic at Rowan University in the US. Today, having performed everywhere from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Singapore Esplanade, Gargiulo is once again setting a course for Cambodia. Here, alongside Satomi Ogawa – who in addition to being a celebrated soprano also happens to be Miss Universe Japan – he will headline at the Catch A Cambodian Star concert: a classical concert, but not as we know it. Expect an evening of enchanting music by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov and Puccini infused with fast-paced humour from this most irreverent of classical musicians (proceeds from the concert, tickets for which are $20 in advance and $25 on the door, help fund international scholarships for local talent; call 016 892377 for reservations). The Advisor caught up with Julian in his adopted home of New York City to talk afros, not getting kidnapped by Russian agents and how hard it is defining yourself in 25 words or less.

Obvious question: how’s that magnificent mane of yours?
My hair is still growing, mysteriously! I cut it myself. I cut it sometimes right before I play, which Samson for sure wouldn’t do. When you cut your hair, sometimes it looks better. Well, it doesn’t look better, especially if I’m cutting it, but I think the hair gets a little fresher or something. So I cut it and then I wash it and then TA-DA!

And then it precedes you on stage by a full five minutes. Does it have its own passport? Do you have to book an extra seat for it on the plane?
I have to book extra overhead space…

So the other big news since last we met is: baby. Congratulations, daddy.
Thank you. I’m very excited. That’s why I’m surprised I haven’t lost my hair yet. I just had a dream that someone was shaking my baby. I’m not a violent person, but in my dream I punched this guy. I think I overreacted in the dream.

We had a dream alchemist here a few weeks ago. I’ll hook you up. Most dreams are your brain processing whatever has happened during the previous 24 to 48 hours, I’m told.
It was probably the guacamole.

So how does it feel being a dad?
Do you want to see her? She’s sleeping right now… [walks laptop over to crib]

No afro! Are you sure she’s yours? Have you checked?
I actually have serious doubts because not only is the hair not there, but she has these big blue eyes.

If she can play piano, you’re safe. Try her with something easy; some Rachmaninoff, perhaps.
[Laughs] There you go.

We’re very excited you’re coming back.
I’m excited! Last time was my first visit. There was this very cool editor that I met, from The Advisor. You don’t know her… [Laughs] I just remember that when I was there, there was a whirlwind of stuff organised and everybody I met was super-friendly. I did get the feeling I was much more important than I ever thought myself to be.

I think we all fell a little bit in love with you.
No, no! It’s just me! Relax.

That’s rather the point. I found a marvellous quote about you in the St John Times from 2004: “A marvellous tour de force… Somewhere between a lecture recital and Saturday Night Live, but with the added benefit of the highest calibre piano-playing between skits.” Pretty much sums you up, wouldn’t you say?

Um…

Oh, come on. I’ve seen Beethoven recitals at The Sydney Opera House; I’ve seen orchestras conducted by Andre Previn. Never have I seen anyone make classical music quite so wildly entertaining as you do – apart, perhaps, from British comedy duo Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise.
I have no idea who that is. Send me a link! It was also nice in Cambodia to see how many people came to see the show. That’s one of the challenges with classical music: nobody comes. And if people don’t come, it’s more difficult to create the excitement. Maybe what I’m trying to do is rebel. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m a rebel. I’m really just doing what I like to do and what I feel comfortable doing, which is very much connecting with people. I do it through the way I play – I express everything I want to express – but then I also want to talk and I want it to be done in a different way.

Few classical musicians share the same high-energy tempo you’re now famous for. You’re essentially a hype man with a wicked hair cut.
Hey, that’s a good quote! I love ‘wicked’.

Now, what else is new for you?
I’m working on a new album but it won’t be ready by the time I get to Cambodia. I still haven’t figured out the title; it’s going to be me playing just my own stuff. Is it going to be ‘Julian Playing Julian’? But that sounds very weird.

How about Julian Squared? It’s you, by you.
That sounds good! And I can be on the cover with a little ‘2’ beside my head… [Laughs]

And New York has been treating you well?
Very! I’m sad we’re not here more. We’re moving to Paris in September. Elektra [Julian’s partner] got into a fabulously difficult simultaneous translation programme at the Sorbonne University, where they take 12 people out of 350. We’re going to be there for two years. It doesn’t really matter where I am, so long as I’m near an airport. At the moment I’m writing a lot; playing a lot. I’m meeting with my agent tomorrow to discuss my future.

It’s going to huge – just like your hair!
[Laughs] We’ll probably just discuss the restaurant menu and what we’re going to eat, but we might discuss a concert or two along the way. Has Cambodia changed much since I was last there?

There are parts of it you won’t recognise.
I remember feeling a good, positive thing going on. Something like the San Francisco Renaissance. So anyway, the CD idea is Julian Plays Julian – or Julian Squared – and it’s all my music, but it’s also collaboration with friends. I’m still finishing a sonata for piano and trumpet. There are going to be a few pieces for piano and voice and then just piano.

Is music something that just kind of happens to you? Do you have some sort of musical Higgs Boson in your brain that makes it pop into existence?
Maybe it’s similar to when you write a story. There are different sides to it. Maybe the idea comes to you in a moment, or maybe you have to sit there and write and then it becomes clear.  I really enjoy composing but you have to be completely focused. I’ve found that one of the difficult things with having a baby is that part of your brain is always on the baby. If you want to write music you have to get into the piece; it’s like a separate world. It takes a little bit of time. You can’t just go in immediately. If you don’t have three hours in a row to do that, that’s definitely one of the challenges. She’s even coming into my dreams now! But I’m so excited about everything right now: Elektra, the baby…

And you’re coming back here for the Catch A Cambodian Star concert. No shortage of hot young talent here at the moment.
They’re hot; they’re sweaty; they’re dying to get to cooler temperatures! [Laughs] I’m excited about this. The last concert I did in Cambodia was for children orphaned by the Japanese tsunami. This is a completely different thing, raising money for kids who want to pursue their music. It’s a great thing, especially in a place like Cambodia. It must be so difficult if you want to reach the next level in music. Usually that’s leaving the place you’re from. It’s always about leaving, even for me: I was raised in Italy; I studied in Italy; I went to the conservatory for 10 years of training and work, but where was it I really developed as a musician? When I left and went to Russia. That was an incredible experience: it was 1993 and everything was super cheap. I got a copy of all 32 Beethoven sonatas for about 85 cents. Beethoven wouldn’t have been impressed.

And you managed not to get kidnapped by Russian agents.
[In broad Russian accent] Actually, vot I vonted to tell you today… My name is actually Boris and I play ze tuba. Ze piano voz a cover.

Speaking of mysterious disappearances, remember the album you gave me last time you were here: No Smoking? My favourite track – and perhaps the greatest track title of all time – is Dismembering You.
Oh, really? It was a dream. I dreamed very vividly that I had killed somebody and it was very, very vivid. I woke up in the morning and felt terrible because I’d killed somebody. I went to the bathroom and I couldn’t look in the mirror because I felt so bad. I guess that feeling somehow comes out a little bit in the song. There was that side of it then there was also the poem, which I guess is more about identity in a way: what you are and where that is located. It’s not in your eyes; it’s not in your arms. Where is the source of Phoenix Jay? Where is the source of Julian Gargiulo?

Here’s an idea: how would you define you in the length of a Hollywood film pitch – that’s 25 words or less?
Hey, I thought that was your job!

Look, I have to fill at least 2,500 words. You’ve only got 25. Must I do everything?
It’s very difficult to speak about yourself. You should know that. I think I would do much better interviewing people. This is my true calling in life.
You certainly write well. I was reading one of your columns earlier; the piece about writing – or rather, not writing – a masterpiece. One of my favourite bits was the biography at the end. Perhaps that could be your Hollywood pitch, although we might have to cut a couple of words: ‘Julian Gargiulo is a pianist and composer who divides his time between wishing sabre-toothed tigers weren’t extinct and making paper pirate hats out of his old bios.’ Twenty-eight words. We’ll cut your name out.
[Laughs] That’s perfect! I think I need to update that. I wrote it late at night.

Speaking of which, what can we get up to this trip? We took you for your first Khmer BBQ last time. Come to see my punk band?
Good idea! Do you provide the earplugs? ‘Earplugs sold separately.’ That would be a good title for an album…

The voice

Striding onto the catwalk in an emerald-green dress crafted from recycled water bottles, a seemingly endless train of fabric spooling over the stage behind her, Rhiannon Johnson embodied the very essence of Glamazon 2.0. Born in Barbados to English parents, and having spent her formative years in Kenya before graduating from London’s much-admired Central St Martins University of the Arts, this elegant chanteuse cuts quite the dash on the runway. But it’s what’s underneath – namely, her vocal chords – that really quickens the pulse. The Advisor cornered Rhiannon offstage to talk Caribbean culture, crippling shyness and what it’s like fronting Cambodia’s rowdiest funk band.

Where on Earth did you get those vocal chords, madam?
Music in Barbados is a big deal. In the Caribbean, it’s a huge part of their culture. Once a year, we’d have this big festival to celebrate the end of the crops and sugar cane; it’s called Crop Over. Listening to the radio and singing was always a huge part of my life, but it wasn’t until I got to school in Kenya that I got the chance to focus on it. It felt great: it was me coming out of myself. I’d only ever sung by myself in the shower. I’d get really nervous doing open mics in shopping centres and my best friend, who’s here in Cambodia with me now, would listen to me sing in the toilets before I went on and say: ‘It’s OK. You’re going to be great!’ Now she’s here in Cambodia, at the front of a Durian concert, clapping and shouting. It’s so serendipitous. And I feel very grateful to have parents who have always said: ‘You have to do whatever it is you love.’ Both of my parents are very creative.

How did you come to find yourself here?
I had no concept of Southeast Asia or Cambodia at all, but my mother and best friend – who are all here – were on Skype saying: ‘If you come here, you’ll find something. Why not just come along?’ I said OK, quit my job, shipped all my stuff, brought my brother with me and now we’re all here. What are the odds?

That’s the universe telling you something.
I took a while to figure out what I was going to do here. I remember singing at a few open mic nights and I was so shy. I sat on the chair with my legs crossed and kind of went like this… [mimes curling up into the foetal position]. It took a while for the music thing to kick off and then it took a while for me to get comfortable and into the groove of the whole thing. Then a friend took me to meet Euan Gray and GTS. Euan’s very good and very practiced at encouraging people to come out of themselves and to sing and be musical and try different things. I think he can see it in people. He’s very good at getting them to own this gift they didn’t realise they had and to use it. It was very easy for him to get me singing again. He was doing a duo at The Quay and asked me to step in while Louise Norup was away for six weeks. It was a really nice way to get started; to get accustomed to the sound of my own voice out loud.

From civilised beginnings at The Quay, you’ve since gone on to front Cambodia’s dirtiest, low-down funk band, Durian.
I’ve gone through all these phases. I started out with Euan, which was mostly pop/soul stuff, then Phil & Ritchie got in touch and we did a gig together at Red Apron. They’re both hilarious; great company. That was mostly jazz. Then there was the trio with Euan and Charlie Corrie. Then Chris Rompre approached me, saying they were thinking of putting Durian back together.

Funk: that’s a very different sound than what you were doing before.
It’s fun! It’s very melodic, good fun. At the time, it was just what I needed. I’ve gone through a lot of changes with music. I was terrified, because I’d seen their last gig and the energy. I’d seen Jess [Knowles, former lead singer] just throw herself into the gig, with sweat flying. That energy! I love funk music but I’d never really sung any before. Then I realised I’d never really sung any of the other stuff before either. The earlier stuff was very laidback, very mellow. The sheer amount of energy I had to put into funk music really intimidated me, but feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

Absobloodylutely!
I already knew I was going to be surrounded by great people who were going to be really supportive and it just carried on. I put so much into our first gig that I sweat more than I ever have in my life! I went into Equinox’s toilet to change my dress and actually wrung it out. It was stuck to me! I was totally spent at the end of it but it was great fun. I’m really sad that it’s come to an end for a while, if not permanently.

What’s the story?
Our trumpet player and our guitarist have left Cambodia for good, and everyone else has gone away for two to six months. They’ll be back, but we’ll need to find new members. But we didn’t even know there was going to be a Durian 2.0, so we’ll see. I am going to miss it. What do I do now with my Monday nights?! Monday nights are long. What do you do?!

So what’s next for you?
Greg Lavender, the drummer, who’s a very dear friend of mine and plays with Durian as well as everyone else, he said ‘Why don’t we put a thing together?’ Our quartet has now done a few gigs at The Village.

And this quartet is called…
 [Laughs] The Rhiannon Johnson Quartet! I’m so sorry. We struggled for so long on that one. Stephane is a genius with the word play and he came up with so many fantastic names, but we didn’t want to come across as pretentious. It’s so hard with these things, as you know. You come up with a name and you’re like, ‘This is brilliant!’ Then you look at it again and it’s, like, you just can’t.

Pun fail!
And my name is WAY too long for a band name.
I was going to ask you whether it’s a stage name.
Are you kidding?! It’s WAY too long!

It’s an awesome name. You just kind of sigh it: ‘Rhhhhiiiiaaaaanon Johhhhhnson’…
[Laughs] You’re so full of it! So that’s the quartet. We’ll see. The funny thing is, for the past year… stuff just comes up. When I first got here I panicked because it was so new and I fell in love with singing. I hope it continues. That’s the wonderful thing about Cambodia: you can do anything.

Howzabout a funk-punk duet?
[Looks nervous] Yes. Absolutely. Um… Cambodia has taught me to trust that things will happen and to trust myself and others. I work with amazing, talented musicians and they’re wonderful. They’ve taken the time to sit down and teach me things and made me feel I do have something to offer. I get really nervous, but then I get out there and it’s wonderful.

What do you listen to during your down time?
Musically, I don’t listen to anything like what I sing.
Metallica? AC/DC? You’re listening to Slayer, aren’t you?
[Laughs] Not Slayer, no, but I do love a huge range of stuff. There are a lot of jazz songs I would hum or sing on my walk to work in London and now I’m performing them. I remember standing on stage singing Cry Me A River and thinking ‘I can’t believe that a year ago I was singing this on my way to work and in my bedroom and doing the laundry.’ I recorded it one night when I was at home on a Saturday on GarageBand, only because there was no one else there to hear me. All of a sudden I’m singing it in front of people. And they’ll turn to you with a big grin on their face and start mouthing the words along with you. At home, I listen to stuff like Lord Huron and James Vincent McMorrow. It’s mostly easy listening; pop and rock. It’s very mellow, but then I put a play list together for a party on Saturday night and it was all Earth, Wind and Fire; Motown, funk. I love that stuff and can listen to it all day if I’ve got my groove on.

WHO: Rhiannon Johnson
WHAT: Silken vocals, from jazz to funk
WHERE: Various exotic locations in Cambodia
WHEN: We’ll let you know, so Watch This Space!
WHY: If you weren’t at Glamazon 2.0, ask anyone who was

 

Song from on high

THERE ARE NO SHARP EDGES anywhere at Ragamuffin House. Desks, stairs, shelves: all have been carved into elegant, sweeping curves. Sunlight pours in not through windows but through port holes; crisp white walls glowing with natural light. On the top floor, in a tiny studio muffled by chunks of grey soundproofing foam sprouting from the walls, Euan Gray fluffs up a drooping bean bag.

This impossibly tall, soft-spoken Australian has taken up residence in Ragamuffin’s impossibly Zen space dedicated to creative arts therapy. Here, among the many instruments, sheets of music and seats from which it’s almost impossible to get up once you’ve sat down, the saxophonist is creating a place where people can come to heal. “I have a lifelong commitment to the spirit of music therapy,” he practically whispers. “The Ragamuffin Lighthouse Studio will be many things to many different people. There will be two main streams: a professional recording studio for musicians, plus a therapy space for healing through music for anyone from us, who get healing just from playing and recording music, to kids with trauma.”

Introduced to Ragamuffin House by the Khmer-Australian girlfriend he moved to Cambodia in pursuit of last year and is marrying on May 4, Euan is better known in his native Brisbane as frontman for The Rooftops – here for the wedding and playing at The Village the day after. Drawing heavily on soul, jazz, reggae and pop, The Rooftops – four-year residents at The Bowery in Brisbane, where Euan first met his fiancée – are synonymous with the sort of uplifting dancing-barefoot-in-the-streets sound only those who grew up on sun-drenched coastlines can create.

The grooves are feet-friendly, the storytelling soulful – some of it inspired by Euan’s long-term love affair with Cambodia – and the vibe is reflected right here in his blossoming studio. “What I was always trying to get at through the band is that feeling of unlocking ourselves and the audience into new experiences, new release and positive vibes. Coming here and taking it right back to basic stuff – getting up the courage to perform – you realise that unlocking is actually much simpler than doing a big gig and having a famous band and getting a hit record. That’s actually quite far removed from the heart of what that process is.

“My whole experience of recording, almost, is committing to spending a lot of money and a lot of stress and a lot of rushing around. Going to the studio and knowing you’re paying $500, $800 a day. The whole point of you being there – to express yourself and to give the best possible version of your song – is sort of put to one side and you’re just going through the ropes.

“A Hundred Different Lives was recorded in a big studio and had that pressure always around it. That was also the one Darren Percival produced. He’s now famous in Australia because he came second in The Voice. He’s truly amazing and I really felt like he foregrounded the meaning of each song: ‘Let’s get into this space. What does it mean? Let’s get into the emotion before the technicalities.’ That was a bit of an eye opener, but it was still in this context of stress and money and time, so we recorded our last album, Everything to Everyone, in our little home studio in Brisbane and it was so much better – more relaxed, because it was our time and our agenda in our space. That’s the kind of philosophy I want to replicate here at Ragamuffin House.”

From shrill horns emulating the trumpeting of a lumbering pachyderm on the upbeat reggae of Monkeys And Elephants to the haunting melancholy of In The Morning, The Rooftops’ most Cambodia-centric songs form the core of their set list for The Village, with a smattering of other material, new and old. “In previous albums I’ve tried to approach bigger issues that aren’t my issues, including stuff about Cambodia. Big things, like war. Everything to Everyone was definitely more personal: relationships; self-realisation.”

WHO: The Rooftops
WHAT: The grooves are feet-friendly, the storytelling soulful
WHERE: The Village, #1 Street 360
WHEN: 7pm May 5
WHY: The sort of uplifting dancing-barefoot-in-the-streets sound only those who grew up on sun-drenched coastlines can create

Lest We Forget

Clean Dirt

We built it in the jungle

So if we go the jungle will grow

If they come searching

Only we will know

We’ll wait a thousand seasons

When the trouble’s gone maybe we’ll forget

To remember

Maybe that’s the best the gods can get   

“It’s about leaving Angkor Wat to the jungle; about trying to understand what it would have been like as a worker building this thing. Why are they building it? It’s not for the gods. It’s reducing it to a single lifetime: they built it and then they had to flee when the Thais were coming and the capital was moved. You know what? It’s better to leave it to the jungle. ‘We built it for our own reasons: not for the king, not for national sovereignty. We built it out of a sense of devotion to our own gods and our own families. And you know what? It’s better in the jungle; better than having all these tourists crawling over it.’

“It’s one of those things: you try to understand what it was like for people you don’t know and it ends up being a song about yourself. My personal Angkor Wat is the structures you build around yourself thinking that’s what you want and need, but what you really need is no structure, no walls; something that’s about being yourself and valuing the people around you. You don’t need a big temple to prove you’re devoted to God or whatever. I just need a small structure. This studio on the top floor of Ragamuffin House is my Angkor Wat and look, the trees are already reclaiming it!” [Laughs and points to plants engulfing balcony] 

History of Beating Hearts

Clean Dirt 

If looks can kill, then it can’t hurt

To wear a simple T-shirt

A golden star on a background of red

Sold with her tourist smile

Another one gone from the pile

In a past this colourful

It’s just one thread

But she’s old enough to know

Revolutions come and go

So the irony is on my chest for all to see

“I wrote this while I was in Laos but it just seems to be the story of this region. It’s basically the commoditisation of a culture, like when they sell a T-shirt with a gold star on it and people walk around wearing a Communist star on their chests like an idiot, not knowing what it means. That’s interesting but what does the woman who sold it to you think about it? What does she know about it? That’s not the real history here – we just sold it to you. The real history is the history of beating hearts: history is created by interactions between people, not this surface ideology stuff.”

Rice

A Hundred Different Lives 

In your dreams you see machines

That clean away our ways of living

They take the place of working hands

And the land is warm and willing

But of your mechanic wonderland

We see only two

The speaker blasting out your lies

And the car that will get rid of you

Still we can sit for hours

Powerless in the sun

We’ll rise and shout what you tell us to

But will not be overcome

“I’ve been so fascinated with recent Cambodian history. I’ve read all the books the kids sell. Living here it seems to be such a background thing, but as a tourist and thinking about Cambodia from afar, I was just so captivated by the stories. Rice is the story of an actor in The Killing Fields who went through the same experience everyone did, even though he was playing someone else in history. It’s the story of his starvation and struggles. The constant theme in all these books is people just wanting rice, just wanting to be fed; this idea of remembering the times when you used to eat rice together. That’s where the title of that album comes from: a hundred different lives flashing before his eyes as he’s being tortured. But after all these things, all he really wants in life is some rice. It’s a large story: unpacking all those things into one desire that’s not met.”

Rain Gamblers

Everything To Everyone

Swear I saw them yesterday

Same the day before

Silhouettes of ghostly men

Maybe twenty, maybe more

Standing still as weathervanes

Searching in the sky

Counting minutes, counting clouds

Silent statues, empty eyes

Swear I heard one whispering 

But it could have been the breeze

Spreading like a rumour

The colours changing in the trees

At the distant sound of thunder

I thought I saw one grin

The first drops of the season

Falling like money down on him

“Someone sent me an article on the rain gambling that goes on in Battambang and I found it so evocative: these people standing around on rooftops with their CB radios. I don’t know anyone who gambles on rain, but I have known people who have problem gamblers in their family and the trouble that creates. So this evocative image turned into an exploration of how problem gambling can manifest through generations, which is really what I’m interested in: the heart of everything; how these things end up manifesting.”

Monkeys and Elephants

Everything To Everyone

They say that an elephant never forgets

But if mine’s in the room I would happily bet

That you would never even know that he is there

He breathes like a rock in the weathering sun

Moves like a river that has already run

He’s the mountain, I’m the mountain air

If it’s true he can carry anything that I know

I would happily pack it up and happily go

If I knew it wouldn’t tumble down on me

And with an elephant benevolently helping to show

The strength that I need to shoulder my load

I know I’ll be alright 

“Monkeys and elephants are the guardian angels of a Cambodian person I know and they have led a life just as hard as anyone. I could list the number of times they’ve nearly died but they haven’t because of their guardian angels, monkeys and elephants. This is a guy whose English is excellent; who knows about business and science and reads Western papers every day. He knows what it means to say you have guardian angels in the West, but he still believes it.”

In The Morning

A Hundred Different Lives

In the ocean of crimes

I’ve saved but a handful

And to look into the past is to die

So all that I ask

Cos you sure can’t forgive me

Is to leave me in the hope

That you might

“I started to write a song about Duch [Kaing Guek Eav, head of Khmer Rouge interrogation centre S21, convicted in 2011 of crimes against humanity, murder and torture] because I’d read some of the things he said during the trial. I quote him in the song: ‘All that I ask, because you sure can’t forgive me, is to leave me in the hope that you might.’ I thought that was huge so I wrote the song and it turned out sounding like a forgiveness-in-a-relationship story. I just put the word ‘Baby’ in and all of a sudden… you know? It’s exploring the idea of forgiveness: how do you forgive the unforgiveable? How do you forgive yourself? How do you forgive your partner? What is forgiveness? In some ways it’s much more obvious in a trial because there’s a guilty person and that’s it, it’s done, but when there are no lawyers, no judge…”

Everything To Everyone is available on totherooftops.com
Storm Season, Clean Dirt, and A Hundred Different Lives are on iTunes

 

Rhythm is a dancer

So you think you can dance, do you? What’s that? What do you mean, ‘no’? In the funkalicious den of dance mastery, every man, woman and child fall into one of three categories, whether we admit it or not: loves to busta move, loves to busta drunken move, and fist pumps. There’s no better place to witness the veracity of this categorisation than our very own Pontoon dance floor, which nightly pullulates with punters tootin’ and bootin’. For the month of May, Dance World Cambodia is encouraging secret dance lovers and foot tappers to channel their sublimated urges by bringing in two guest teachers from Australia to unleash Phnom Penh’s natural rhythm. 

“Passion and commitment” are all that separate a dance floor legend from a demick, says Dance World director Laura Joy Kiddle. “Our May workshops are open to anyone who enjoys music and movement exploration. I hope students leave feeling invigorated, inspired, lifted, a little bit exhausted and pushed to their personal limits, but with a new found love of dance.”

The four workshops will be led by Freya List and Kim Adam, founders and choreographers on Collaboration – The Project, an independent dance company that has steered over 30 productions in the last four years. Trained in New York and Los Angeles, as well as in their native Australia, List and Adam are well known for their emotive performances which, Kiddle insists, are powerful enough to move audiences to tears.

Catering for different dance persuasions, the workshops are characterised by variety. List will lead two classes in lyrical contemporary, an expressive hybrid of classical and modern dance which encourages students to explore their individuality through both technical and improvised movement. Those of a less poetic persuasion may prefer Kim Adam’s Broadway Jazz class, a celebration of all things show tune with routines based on Chicago, Hairspray and Chorus Line. Don’t forget your jazz hands. There will also be a special hip hop workshop from Dance World resident teacher Erin Hooper, who will school you in when to dougie, when to pop and lock it, and when all you need to do is jerk.

Special workshops such as these are crucial to giving students the most holistic dance experience possible, says Kiddle. “A well-rounded dancer needs to train in as many disciplines as possible with different teachers. I hope students are going to develop their own personal relationship to the music and see dance as a higher form of communication.”

And if you’re absolutely convinced that you were in the bathroom when God was handing out the dance smarts, Kiddle has some words of comfort. While natural rhythm and the ability to do the splits are bonuses, being a good dancer starts in the heart and not in the feet. “It’s all about being able to move your audience, making them forget whatever is on their mind and leave behind raw emotion – joy, sadness, pain or love.”

Classes cost $15 per workshop (1.5 – 2 hours) or $50 for the whole programme and can be reserved by emailing dance@nulldanceworldcambodia.com or via the website danceworldcambodia.com.

WHO: Freya List, Kim Adam and Erin Hooper
WHAT: Dance workshops for everyoneWHERE: Dance World Cambodia studios, Hotel Cambodiana, Sisowath Quay
WHEN: May 10, 23 & 24
WHY: Rhythm is a dancer – and everyone got rhythm, even you

Hip to the hop

Ink teardrops etched into the corner of one eye belie the tenderness when he glances up at his young charges, which today is seldom. The story of KK, real name Tuy Sobil, has already been told. Like so many of the Cambodian diaspora who escaped the Khmer Rouge only to fall foul of the system in countries of so-called refuge, his homecoming was forced. But it was here in 2005 that he turned fate on its head.

Fate wasn’t the only thing turned on its head. Here, in vast cavernous rooms with artful graffiti adorning the walls, kids of sex workers, drug addicts, the violent and parents otherwise unable to cope come to immerse themselves in the head-spinng, beat-boying culture that was the first wave of hip hop. Kids who – with the help of a few grown-ups – have just released a new album of all-original material, A Na Koot.

“I guess they wanted to learn bad because they kept coming back and with KK you only have to come back a couple of times because his heart is just going to melt, so he’s like ‘Alright, I’m gonna teach y’all.’” Shorrt is a fellow mentor here at Tiny Toones’ headquarters deep in a bustling alleyway in Chba Ampov on the far side of Monivong Bridge. “Word spread – the kids went and told everybody else that KK was giving free dance lessons – and it became a boys’ dance club. It ended up being 50, 60, 70 kids at his house. They danced so bad you should see the floor! It actually started cracking the floor. I told KK at the time ‘Man, if the landlord ever sees that… How are you gonna pay for it?!’”

Shhort served as a big brother of sorts, making sure no one was fighting because they came from different neighbourhoods. “That was the first unique thing that KK brought: unity among kids from different parts of Cambodia who would beef with each other if they saw each other on the street. But in his house they had to lose that Bong Thom aspect: you’re going to be friends and you’re all going to dance together or you’re not allowed in. That was the main thing I saw that I’d never seen happening in Cambodia before.”

Sitting alongside Shhort, whose arms bear almost as much ink as KK’s, are three of Tiny Toones’ rising rap stars who feature on the album, not one of them older than 15. “The major change is how I feel,” says one boy clad in a Manchester United football shirt. “I’m more happy than I was before I came to Tiny Toones.” “My favourite is the singing and dancing,” volunteers another. “It has opened my eyes to different aspects of art, especially coming from foreign places. I understand more now.” One boy giggles. “I never believed I could be a superstar.”

“I was born in 1980 so I grew up listening to the first rappers back in the day.” Shhort, who first met KK in 2005, is here as chaperone. “To me, rap was a movement. That’s why I fell in love with rap music. It was people living in the ghettoes speaking their minds. People were uniting through hip hop back in the day, with Queen Latifah and all those people. There wasn’t no gangster rap back then. Back then it was the b-boy, unity, love approach. With this album we’re trying to bring back that original love and unity aspect.”

Annihilating such beliefs is a central theme in the 15-track album, which touches on everything from domestic violence to lofty career aspirations. Over a year, with more than one late night, the kids worked to write, perform and record A Na Koot. The producer, barely a few years their senior, grins apologetically. “If I didn’t get the chance to produce music, I wouldn’t be able to sit still. My thing is to make beats. My mind keeps hearing them.”

Playful melodies dance above those beats, simple-yet-spacey electronica a gleeful nod to the glory days of hip hop – main rival in Cambodia to the ubiquitous K-Pop. Tracks are in the universal language of teenagers: I Love My Style; I Wanna Be A Superstar; Hope And Love. “The biggest change I’ve seen in the kids is their confidence and self-esteem,” says Shhort. “Within a couple of months they’re in the dance room, showing off. Kids I’ve seen being made fun of because of their weight or size, they become best friends with everybody. It works so well because the kids have ownership: it’s their skill, their talent. You’re giving people the option to express themselves. They have natural talent. We just give them the opportunity to show it. The parents are shocked at the potential their kids have.”

WHO: Tiny Toones
WHAT: A Na Koot album (price TBC)
WHERE: Autographed and delivered: email dave@nulltinytoones.org or call 017 394879
WHEN: Now!
WHY: Why in hip hop not?

 

Big fun with Dr Eggs

RAPPER, SINGER, multi-instrumentalist, producer, director, teacher: few heads are capable of wearing this many hats. One such head belongs to Hong Kong-based Frenchman Joul, better known as Dr Eggs. He got his start – and name – by dressing as Doc Brown from Back To The Future then having an egg fight with his band. And for more than a decade he’s been firmly giving ennui the middle finger with ska-punk, electro-rave and everything else in between. Sean Barret caught up with Dr Eggs during a rare moment he wasn’t teaching Chinese children to strum their first D-major chord to talk trumpet noises, crazy dancing and how not to get beaten up in a French prison.

Tell us about the new album, TINNS.

It’s a bad translation of ‘This is not new songs.’ I know we don’t say that in English, but whatever. It’s new songs for the audience, but not for me. It’s songs that I recorded in the last four years: some that I didn’t release; some that I recorded with the first album. I did add two new songs, Back and Little Thing, to make it a bit more fresh.

And you make all the music videos. Any plans for more?

We’re doing one next month. It’ll be the last one for this album and then on with the new album. We went to the US last August. There was a guy from the music label Warner. He saw us and kind of liked it so he’s signing Doctor Eggs. They’ll be having me make songs then try to sell them to TV, movies, advertisements, things like this.

Congratulations!

You say ‘Congratulations’, but we all know it’s bullshit. Major labels like Warner and Sony are not what they were before. Before it was: ‘Wow, you signed with Sony; you’re gonna be famous’ or whatever but then you realise that Warner’s got thousands of artists and some of them just stay here and don’t do anything. I think, now, production that you can do by yourself is more important.

Is that what you do?

Yeah, exactly. Especially for the music video [for Little Thing] which I made in Nepal by myself for maybe 3,000 Hong Kong dollars and now everybody in Nepal knows Doctor Eggs. Now we have a chance, with YouTube and things like this, to do things by ourselves.

Are you bringing your own musicians with you to Phnom Penh?

Yeah, two Chinese people and one Western guy. It used to be a French band at the beginning. We were full time musicians, non-stop. I think the guys got pretty tired so they decided to split up and then I moved [to Hong Kong] by myself. So, yes, when I’m on tour, I’ll have different musicians, friends of mine, some who have played in the previous tour. It’s difficult to find musicians who will follow you.

But in the studio, it’s all you?

Yeah.

Really? Drums, guitar, everything?

Um, some of them, yeah. Some are a bit too difficult, a little bit too fast, but when I’m preparing the songs, I spend the day in the studio by myself recording all the parts. If I cannot make the recording than I give it to a better drummer and say ‘Do the same thing, but better.’

So you’re writing parts that you can’t play?

[Laughs] Sometimes. Now we’ve got computers so you can create a fantastic drum track on the computer and then you give it to a musician and say: ‘OK, do the same’ and he’ll say: ‘Really?’ It’s a pretty fast tempo.

The music moves around a lot. The song Toys Attack goes from ska to metal without warning.

That was on the first album. When a band’s doing a first album, they want to do everything and they wanna put all the effort. I think we probably put too much. It was like a potpourri, a mix of all the music that we like. Some newspapers said it was really good but some said: ‘Oh wow, those guys don’t even know that they want to do so they do everything.’ At that time I believed that you can play all the music that you want, but in fact no, you cannot. People want to put you in a kind of like… you know what I’m saying?

A box?

Yeah, yeah. The song, Toys Attack, we thought: ‘Let’s do hop-bah-bah-da-bah.’ You have to be logical. Since this, I try to calm down myself and make something with one direction – not the band – but I wanna believe in it.

Still, it’s hard to say what the new album is: is it electronic? Is it rock ‘n’ roll?

But I can do better than that. For example, yesterday night I was up until 6am in the studio by myself, trying to make easy songs. You know, after you pass 30, you think ‘I should do easy songs’ and then, PFFFFFT! I couldn’t do it! So in the end I did the same kind of shit with a lot of different influences.

You got your start doing ska in France. Was that your first musical love?

Yeah, yeah it was. It was in 1999-2000 and the ska in France became so big at that time so we were touring with all the horns and stuff like this and we played every night with ska bands. I love ska music but when you play – I think we did 150 gigs that year – it’s all the time every night, ska band [makes hilarious trumpet noise] and, at the end, you’re like PFFFTTT! Enough! We had had enough of this [more hilarious mouth trumpeting] so we quit. And the funny thing is now in Hong Kong there is not one fucking ska band, so now we’re thinking maybe we should do some ska probably one day soon.

You moved the whole band to Hong Kong?

No, no, no. I moved by myself. We were touring like crazy; last year we did a lot of gigs in different countries. The band was fucked up and said: ‘We can’t do this anymore.’ At the end, I went on vacation to Hong Kong and then I stayed forever. The funny thing is that it was eight years ago and, last December, we had a tour in France with this band, those guys.

The ska guys?

The original line-up, exactly. And we didn’t see each other for eight years then after eight hours of practice, it was like [snaps fingers] UP! It was the same thing again and we were on tour for ten shows. It was pretty fun. But with time passing by, people need to have a job, which I totally understand. Besides this, I’m doing some production; I’m making some videos; I’ve got a music school for children also. I teach guitar; drums; bass and voice. Which means anytime I want do to a tour it’s like: ‘OK there’s no school this week’ and then I can go. But it’s difficult for everyone else to do the same.

Was this the same band that you played in prison with?

Exactly, exactly.

How did the inmates take it?

When you go to a jail, people are not ready to accept you. Not to make a cliche but most of the people who are in jail are listening to rap music. Luckily, we have some rap parts in the songs but we didn’t know if the guitar would be cool. In fact, it was a total success. I think one of the best gigs I’ve done was in jail. Most of the time they see some really sad artist who’s come to sing acoustic songs. We came to jail, most of the time, pretty fucked up and drunk because it’s a lot of pressure to be in jail. One gig in jail is the pressure of five gigs in stadiums. There is a big tension; it’s cold; it’s too early in the evening, so you need to drive yourself to do better. And from the first song I was insulting them and jumping on the table and asking them to move their fucking asses. They thought: ‘We’ve never heard this before: someone kind of talking in the same language as us.’ After two or three songs, the guys were really enjoying it. At the end of the show they would always come back and say: ‘It’s not my style of music but I really liked the gig.’

So you’re the French Johnny Cash?

Yeah, there aren’t many French bands who do this. We did about 50 jail shows and after 50 I was thinking that’s pretty tight. The funny thing is I did keep contact with some of the prisoners by letter; we were writing letters for the first few years and they never showed up at my house! [Laughs) At that time, my girlfriend was saying: ‘Oh, you don’t give the address. They’re gonna show up and need a job or something.’

A big part of your act is the way you move on stage. Is that all self taught?

[Laughs] Yeah. Watching James Brown, Michael Jackson; even lately The Mars Volta. I started listening to funk music, with all those black musicians. It was my first influence even before hip-hop and rap. So yeah, dancing was a part of it. I really like it but at the beginning we were doing more punk rock and ska and I thought: ‘Oh, I should not do my dancing because they will think it’s ridiculous.’ Now I don’t care. I just do it and it’s working; people do like it. When you go to see a rock show, you’re not expecting to see guys dancing like that.

What do you do to get psyched up before going nuts on stage?

Nothing! That’s the good thing. I don’t really take drugs. I like drinking a little bit but I prefer do that after the show. I do sports every day. For me, it’s like a football match: ‘Ah, let’s go!’ you know? I’m thinking technique, having to sweat. It’s coming naturally. I don’t really care much now and just having fun with it. It’s a success because people appreciate the music and the band more now that we get wild.

When you say sports, what’s your thing?

I’m running every day. Cardio and stuff like this.

What’s a typical day for you?

I wake up at 1pm [Laughs]. I go to Thai boxing and then I run. I’m working four hours a day and that’s it.

Now that you’re using more electronic sounds, it seems like crowds at your shows can’t decide if they’re in a mosh pit or at a rave.

I see that more with what I’m doing now. It’s party rock. I don’t have this dream of being famous. The most important thing is that we really have big fun on stage and the people have big fun. The rest is not important. I really say this in a sincere way. If you asked me this when I was 16, I would say: ‘No. I just wanna be famous.’ Now it’s just putting on a good show, whether that’s for 5,000 or two people. A great show was in San Diego: there were only 30 people, not much, but it was pretty funny and people were crazy. That’s a good show for me. The rest, fame and things like that, I don’t really need it anymore and that’s making it much, much better because you really enjoy these things.

WHO: Doctor Eggs
WHAT: “Party rock”
WHERE: Equinox, St. 278 & Sharky Bar, St. 130
WHEN: 9pm March 29 (Equinox) & 9pm March 30 (Sharky’s)
WHY: Have big fun!