It’s kind of criminal that it’s taken this long for Breakbot and Chromeo to meet on a track as from the sounds of the ‘Bot’s revision of ‘When The Night Falls’ the two electronic entities go together better than safari suits and boogie-ing ’80s grease ball bros.
Chromeo – When The Night Falls (Breakbot Remix)
Out in Australia right now for a slew of festivals over our summer, Chromeo are peddling tunes off their rather fantastic new album ‘Business Casual’. I spoke to Dave1 a few months ago now just as the record was getting ready to bow and have seriously been sitting on the chat ever since. Here’s a copy of the interview published on inthemix. It’s best to imagine Dave1 chatting in a laidback-but-literate twang and me with a goofy Australian drawl. And go…
Hey Dave, what’re you up to?
“We’re just wrapping up a photo-shoot actually. We’ve been here for most of the day.”
Yeah, right. You don’t ever really think about that side of music, the days where you’re not in the studio and you’re not on the road, you’re doing all sorts of external stuff. And with you guys it seems like you put a lot of thought into those other things that you do, it’s controlled.
“Yeah, it is definitely that way. But the trick is not to make it look like there’s a lot of effort and energy going into it. You know, we’re this fun band that makes bubbly, light and playful music and people think that we do all of that without thinking about it all too much.”
I remember reading that as well as Chromeo you personally earned a crust teaching French at a university. Did there come a point where you could step back and focus on the band full time and not have to support yourself with another job?
“I still do teach, actually. Both are sort of a full-time thing for me right now. But yeah, I think with the Fancy Footwork album Chromeo became something that I had to take a little more seriously. You know, I had to think more about touring and making something of a livelihood out of it. I mean, we’ve always taken it seriously, but you can never control or anticipate how something is going to evolve. We just try to make the best of it and show how grateful we are for the opportunities we’ve been given. That’s really it. I know it sounds cheesy and I might sound like a gospel-kinda dude but it really is what we want to do and we want people to know that we’re grateful for being able to do it.”
I was interested to hear from you in another interview that now when you look back at the reaction to She’s In Control you kind’ve understand why people weren’t sure what to make of Chromeo. Why is that and how has that changed since the first album?
“I think people can see that we’ve been so consistent for so long now and they get that it’s really not a joke for us. People will think ‘okay, wow, those guys are really serious about this! They really care about Jheri curl, ‘80s inspired electro funk and they are so real about Hall & Oates that they actually play with Hall & Oates!’. And trends come and go, you know? When we started the band everybody else was doing electroclash; where are they now? Same thing with disco-punk; where are they now? We’re still here, you know?”
Absolutely, I get you. If a band was citing Hall & Oates in 2002 they would’ve been laughed at. Now there’s a lot of love for that sound. It’s caught up to you.
“Yeah, we were saying how much we loved guys like Hall & Oates and Phil Collins and interviewers were hanging up the phone because they thought we were just a joke. When I say that our new record sounds like Kenny Loggins and they hang up the phone again, just know that in five years everybody will be listening to Kenny Loggins.”
As well as the ‘80s electro that you mention, you guys have a big thing for classic rock and you always throw in a little Journey or Boston at your live shows. Where does that side of Chromeo fit into the music?
“We really love old rock songs like that. You know our song Night By Night? That’s all guitars, I love that track. What a lot of people don’t get is that the big musicians of the ‘80s, they were influenced by music of the ‘70s. Like, if you think about what Quincy and Michael were listening to when they made Thriller, the records that were setting the bar back then would’ve been Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and The Eagles. So sometimes we’re so ‘80s that we’re deep into those ‘70s records because those records influenced the stuff that we’re influenced by. That’s our rationale.”
Kenny Loggins was a smooth little pimp in the ‘70s and then in the ‘80s he was like a pop hits juggernaut.
“Yes! And Hall & Oates, man! Hall & Oates were like a prog band in the ‘70s and then they worked with Todd Rungren and then later with Arthur Baker. We embrace all of that.”
I didn’t know they worked with Arthur Baker, clearly I’m not up to scratch on my Hall & Oates.
“Yeah man, it was Big Bam Boom that they did with Arthur Baker. Go buy that album, it’s ‘80s electro but it’s almost hip-hop. It’s almost Afrika Bambaataa.”
Chromeo – Night By Night (Siriusmo Remix)
Tags: Australia, Chromeo, Feature, Festivals, inthemix, New York, Remix, Siriusmo
So much love for Chromeo, no question about that. In an age where buzz bands and producers spring up for three weeks only to be never heard from again these two funkers are just so damn consistent and their new LP Business Casual is already a 2010 favourite. Here’s my review of the record as published on inthemix.com.au.
Chromeo – Don’t Turn The Lights On (Christian Martin Remix)
Lenny Kravitz – Breath (Chromeo Remix)
Chromeo have always skated a thin line with followers of their immaculate retro-electro. Are the talk-box vocals and synth-ed up sounds a joke? Do they really love Hall & Oates as much as they say they do? How seriously can you take them? While such questions were legitimate ones following the release of their first record, She’s In Control, when the Canadian duo dropped their follow up disc Fancy Footwork in 2007 any doubts of the band’s resolve were squashed. That was an album packed with hit after hit, and most importantly, it was great to listen to, every song tweaked and twisted to perfection. With Fancy Footwork, we finally found out the truth about Chromeo; they’re serious about being fun, and as such, they’re seriously fun. Now the Canadian funksters have arrived at album number three and it’s all sorts of awesome.
Kicking off Business Casual with Hot Mess, Chromeo waste no time in re-familiarising listeners with what the duo do best, wheeling out the thick analog synths and bouncing rhythms for a skinny-tie-sporting ‘80s romp. It’s a perfect opener to the record, showing that Chromeo haven’t missed a beat in between drinks. Things then slink on and into I’m Not Contagious, another slice of unabashed retro-goodness with hooks for days.
If there was a worry that perhaps Chromeo would get a little stagnant mining the one style for so long – but doing it ever so well I’ll add – then Business Casual’s lead singles offer some impressive flashes of diversity for the pair of Dave 1 and P-Thugg with Night By Night offering up some of the guitar heroics of the band’s live show and Don’t Turn The Lights On turning down the BPMs for a strutty sex jam. Elsewhere You Make It Rough bursts forth into an extended seven-minute synth-epic.
These newish colours suit the Chromeo boys, especially when they get around to the smoothed out J’ai Claqué La Porte which as well as being the band’s first song completely in French also features Chromeo picking up strings and acoustic guitars for a wonderfully lush two minutes.
But as with every dose of Chromeo material, the duo never push too far behind doing what they love and Business Casual is naturally plumped out with some cracking gems like When The Night Falls and the giddy soft-pop of The Right Type.
It’s all over too quickly in just 10 tunes, but if Business Casual proves one thing it’s that Chromeo are incredibly consistent so it’s likely that I’ll be back here in another three years listening to their next album with a huge grin on my face.
Tags: Christian Martin, Chromeo, Lenny Kravitz, Modular, Remix, Rev
Damn, a month in between posts, my apologies. Let me make it up to you with this new Aeroplane remix of Chromeo’s latest funk odyssey. It’s a classic Chromeo joint and Aeroplane’s reworking is extra smooth, easily better than anything on the We Can’t Fly LP.
Chromeo – Don’t Turn The Lights On (Aeroplane Remix)
Subscribe Feed (RSS)
Comments Feed
Hyperbole is a dope music blog which was formerly located at http://masshyperbole.blogspot.com for around four years before the plug was pulled by the powers that be. It lives on, hopefully better than ever here on Hyperbole.tv.
Dave Ruby Howe is a music journalist, blogger and editor from Sydney, AUS. Hyperbole is his music blog about music, writing and music writing. But not writing music. Get it? Cool.
Dave Ruby Howe is also the Assistant Music Director of Australia Music at triple j, serving as the music director for the recently launched digital radio station, triple j Unearthed. As such a lot of what's blogged on here comes from there. Because it's all so awesome.