5 (or so) Questions For… Dawn Landes!

By Levina Duivesteijn

Exactly one week ago, Dawn Landes played a wonderful solo-show at the Monto Water Rats here in London. With her new album Sweet Heart Rodeo she has been busy touring Europe and will soon brighten up Toronto, Montreal, and several cities in the States with her fine tunes. But it’s not only her beautiful voice which made the show so wonderful and enjoyable - without exaggeration, Dawn Landes simply charms you away with her presence. She engages with the audience, got us to sing along with Straight Lines, and delivered a wonderful encore of three songs (of which one was my favourite song Twilight - yes Dawn, that was me instantly shouting “Twilight!” when you asked the audience what to play next!). I had the honour to have a drink with her in the pub before the show and we talked about living in France, her new album, and her fantastic blue-grass cover of Peter, Bjorn and John’s Young Folks which became a hit on YouTube - and is how I got to know her music in 2007!

You have been touring the US, Paris and Holland these last few weeks – how has it been?

It’s been good, the US-stuff was with my band. I have been touring a lot with the band since the record came out, so I was a little nervous to do solo-shows but it’s going well.

You lived in France for a while, how was it to go back recently?

Living in France was amazing, many new different experiences and it was great to go back, see my friends, and play. I can speak a little bit of French, so that was fun. I have a couple of French songs too. On my very first record I did a song called the French song, which apparently has terrible French pronunciation in it [laughs].

Why did you want to live in France?

I had been touring there for a while, and there is something about touring in another country and having a relationship with people you can’t understand, and who can’t understand you. When you are playing in foreign countries you are often crippled in a way, because you can’t really communicate in between the songs. I wanted to explore that a little. And also, they are just so cool. I wanted to see what they were talking about at the bar, simply go up to them and say “hey what are you talking about, it looks like you’re having such a good time,” just wanting to be part of the conversation. And I love the sound of the language too.

Your recorded your new album in your own studio - which you built yourself?

Yes! Together with some friends we built it over the summer last year.

Something you wanted to do for a long time?

Definitely. I have been working in studios for about 7 years, before Steve [Salett] and I started building this place. I don’t know if you know the politics of working in a studio, but you more or less start working as the runner, who goes and gets the coffee, stays around, gets the food, and slowly you pick up bits of knowledge of how things work. So yeah, I guess I always wanted to be my own boss and just record the stuff I want to record.

Your new album – how much does it differ from your old album?

For me, I don’t start out to make an album – I just have a bunch of songs and it becomes its own thing by the fact that it’s created at the same moment in time. It’s like a photograph, my favourite engineer Steve Albini always says he is a sound capturer or recordist, like the photographer of a band - you’re trying to capture what they’re doing at that specific moment in time.

The way I got to know you was through your cover Young Folks, how did that song come about?

I played a few times at the music festival South by SouthWest, and the first time I was there I found myself at a barbecue restaurant and saw this group of old blue grass musicians playing. They played there every Sunday night for over ten years and I just loved them. They are so much fun and quirky, and I decided to ask them to play as my band when I would go back next year. Which was crazy, because I didn’t really know them and they are all in their seventies. But I did and they agreed to do it. I then heard that song Young Folks at the festival and thought it was a great song. For them it didn’t really matter which song we did since they mostly do covers and had to learn some of my songs anyway. It was such a fun song to do, especially as I always feel a bit out of place at these kind of places, because it’s all about being cool and being the next best thing. These people have been playing music their whole lives, so for me it was like saying “fuck you” to everybody, “THIS is cool, THESE people are the shit”. And it was a great show, everybody loved it.

Any exciting plans in the near future or too busy touring?

Well, I started a girl-band! The band is called The Bandana Splits and it’s just me and two friends goofing off. We made a small EP and it’s really good but I haven’t really had time to focus on it since, so hopefully I’ll get that out more in the summer.

Many thanks to Dawn Landes for her time and such a wonderful show. Watch some video-footage of the gig below, check her out on MySpace for some sweet tunes and track her on our site for future gigs - highly recommended!

Dawn Landes at Monto Water Rats in London, March 2010 from Levina on Vimeo.

Video footage of the gig of Dawn Landes on the 1st of March 2010 at the Monto Water Rats in London. Thanks to Dawn Landes for such a wonderful evening.

Tagged: London, Interviews, .

1. levina- reblogged this from bandsintownblog and added:

   Since I started working for Bandsintown.com...gotten to know SO many great musicians. Dawn...

2. bandsintownblog posted this