First of all, we don’t yet know a lot about the members of Dragonette individually so please provide an interesting fact about each of you.
Joel: his retirement aspiration is to tour hotel bars as a lounge pianist. (he’s actually quite good at it already)
Dan: is from Brasil.
Tina: has a twin brother.
Will: Will’s uncle is Mark King from Level 42. They are both from the Isle of Wight.
You relocated to London to record your album – how did you find living in the UK?
So far it’s been great. Everyone we’ve met and made friends with are really cool, save for the couple of times we nearly got beat up by the kind of drunk asshole you only ever really find here in London.
What do you miss most about home?
A perfect winter’s day (you’ve seen the kind on TV…. Fluffy snow, not too cold, sunny, the smell of a log fire in the air); good and easy Chinese food (Toronto has the best, in our opinion); mum and dad.
What can we expect from a full-length Dragonette CD?
Everything you ever wanted out of a long-play record: drama, hope, sex, redemption, lies and love.
If you could draft in any musician or producer to work on your next album, who would you choose?
That would depend on the kind of songs we end up writing for our next record. If we brought in anyone, it would probably be someone we find on myspace who’s got some cool new ideas that haven’t been used anywhere else yet. Who knows, though… we’ll probably have a different opinion 6 months from now.
In the early days of Dragonette you posted 2 of your best songs, I Get Around and Shock Box, for fans to download for free on your web site. What is your opinion on illegal downloading? Are you happy for fans to share your MP3s in the name of promoting you to potential new Dragonette-lovers?
That’s pretty much the only reason to hand our songs for free… in the hopes that whoever’s getting them likes what we do and passes it on. Getting into the habit of thinking that music should always be free is not such a good idea, though (I’ve been there, and have recently come back to the fold of people who buy music from artists they like)… it had actually devalued the whole music experience for me.
You’ve toured with great pop acts such as Annie and Scissor Sisters. When you’re megastars, who will you be calling on to support you on tour?
U2 or Paul McCartney, for sure.
Finally, please confirm that your song Shock Box contains the line “on the other side of Mike Teevee” because no-one will believe me that the song is Roald Dahl-inspired!
Were we that literary that we could write such a line. Roald Dahl rocked our world as kids, but Mike Teevee did not make it into the lyrics of Shock Box.
Thanks to Dragonette for answering my questions. Their single Jesus Doesn’t Love Me is out today so buy it now from HMV.