It has been a big year for arty musical collective Django Django. They have received critical acclaim for the release of their eponymous debut album, a Mercury Prize nomination and some very flattering comments from reviewers on their increasingly theatrical live shows. I interviewed the band’s very own lead singer, Vincent Neff, as the band geared up to headline the NME Award tour at Leeds’ O2 Academy that evening, apparently their biggest show in the city to date.
To start off the interview, I could not resist asking about whether they have had a lot of comments from friends and fans regarding their name and the recent release of Tarantino’s box office hit Django Unchained. Vincent gives a wry smile at the inevitability of this question and explains, “a lot of people say that our name’s been ruined but it has to be said we have had a few more people finding out about us… a lot more traffic on the internet”. The two names are in no way linked then? “We heard Tarantino was starting the Django Unchained project about six months after coming up with our own name, so it was probably a good thing he took his time in producing it!” Certainly, Vincent has a point here, but the band has easily gained fans in their own right in the past year, rising from quasi-obscure art-rock band to fully fledged indie sweethearts, filling up venues and gaining an inimitable place in the musical canon for their more unusual sound.
Such is this musical prowess, that the band have recently released a remix album of their debut, using remixes of the entirety of the track-listing to create something more diverse than the original. I asked about the processes involved in producing such a record, and whether they had much control over who remixed what track and in what way. Vincent explained, “there are a mixture of people we know and look up to musically, so they were obvious choices for the album. We already had about seven decent remixes of songs on the album so thought we might as well get the other five done for completeness.” The album thenseemingly fell into place quite by chance. This element of chance, however, does not mean there is any compromise regarding who remixed the tracks, as Vincent reels off various names attached to the new tracks: “Yeah we had the guy from Franz Ferdinand [Nick McCarthy] remix ‘Firewater’ and a South African guy called DJ Mujava remix ‘Zumm Zumm’.” In addition to this, they managed to acquire Tom Furse of The Horrors to remix much praised single ‘Default’ and Bullion to remix ‘Skies Over Cairo’, along with Super Furry Animals offshoot band Gulp to cover ‘Hand of Man’.
The large and diverse number of musicians interested in their music must be an exciting and affirming experience for the band. I ask, in the light of their headlining the NME Tour this year, whether there have been any bands they have supported that have particularly excited them: “we’ve not actually done much supporting. Metronomy I suppose was the first one, and we learnt a lot as they’ve been playing a lot longer than us. We’ve also done three or four dates with Hot Chip, and we’re massive fans of theirs.” The calibre of these bands shows just how fast the band have found success, supporting Britain’s electronic music veterans and already headlining one of the most anticipated tours of the year.
I try to gain a sense of how the band have achieved such success, so ask Vincent about how their perhaps tongue-in-cheek lyrics go with their off-kilter sound. He replies, “lyrics are not our first love, really. We generally try to create a sort of verbal rhythm in which we fit words in around it…start off sort of speaking in tongues and making noises until something just comes out. We take about three days to do it and sit around getting pissed and writing dirty lyrics”. In this way, then, the processes adopted by Django Django reflect much of the band themselves – laid back, light-hearted and unafraid to try things out.
The band’s casual attitude towards making music is perhaps a consequence of their art school background, as the four-piece all met at the Edinburgh College of Art before forming Django Django. Curious as to whether this side of their lives is still an active and important presence, I ask Vincent about whether they have any side projects beyond music: “Well I’m originally an architect so I keep an eye on that. Tommy is a graphic designer and artist and he’s still pursuing that, so he and Dave do all the album artwork and design the t-shirts. There’s not much time for that now though, as we spend so much of it [time] doing the music.” Despite the fact that this element of their lives is perhaps diminishing somewhat, it seems that it pervades and enhances elements of the band’s recordings and live shows, making them what they are today. One seemingly typical ‘art-school’ element of the live shows is their use of bleach-painted t-shirts, each with a slightly different design. I ask Vincent whether this will ever change, and he chuckles, replying “well, we’re on shirts at the moment. We moved up from t-shirts after the Mercury Prize, moving on to something a little smarter. There’s a very fine line on-stage between looking the part and looking like a twat.”
On the mention of the Mercury Prize, it was hard not to ask about their experiences of being nominated so early on in their careers. Vincent recounts how “it didn’t really sink in at the time. We all watched it as teenagers and saw the likes of Primal Scream and Portishead win, which for us was obviously a massive deal. We really didn’t mind about not winning, and were just happy to be a part of it”. Again, here the laid back attitude of the band was coming out in the light of such a prestigious accolade.
Having asked about Django Django’s recent exploits, I ask what looks likely to be in store for the band this summer, with headline shows at festivals such as Field Day already confirmed. Vincent replies, “for Field Day we plan to do a production extravaganza, working with an artist called Kim Coleman to do all of our lighting design and stuff. In terms of festivals, we’re doing fewer than we did last year but will be higher up on the bills. We’re doing Beacons Festival in Yorkshire, but can’t really mention the other ones yet”. Certainly, then, the band’s career continues to be on the up, and if their current live shows are anything to go by this “production extravaganza” that appears to be in the works will be something not to be missed. For such a humble and genuinely talented band, this break could not be more well deserved.