While enjoying some much-needed touristy downtime in London, Pedestrian recently caught up with Dappled Cities guitarist/vocalist Tim Derricourt to discuss the road map to breaking it internationally, the more depressing aspects of the music industry, their new Breakfast Club meets angry art rock demos and the band’s new found love of lasers.
So can you just tell us where you are now and what you’re up to? We’re in beautiful London, which probably has some of the finest weather I’ve ever seen…which is really weird for this time of year apparently. It’s been like 20 degrees everyday, no sign of rain or cloud! Ridiculous! But yeah we just came from America, and then played some shows in London and we’re about to play some more shows in London. But right now we’ve got 8 days off so we’re sitting around being bums.
Are you going to get touristy? Yeah we got pretty damn touristy. I think we might go to the tower of London today.
How’s the international reception been towards you so far? Yeah good. Well we haven’t really done that much here yet. We’ve just played some shows and met people. But that’s all been very good. Coming into London is pretty interesting after playing in Sydney all these years it’s pretty damn different so I’m looking forward to getting more into the scene as time goes on.
There’s been a kind of mini-trend where Australian bands move overseas and try to break it internationally, is that ever something Dappled would consider? Yeah very much so. I think England feels a lot more acceptable in terms of trying to crack it because I think America is very tough, because you’ve got to have a lot of money behind you and a fair bit of luck, or invest 5 years into it. Whereas I feel that in the UK it might be a quicker thing, well hopefully it is.
You mentioned how hard it is to break it in America – what was it like playing at South by South West? It was pretty crazy…
Yeah it seems like such a slog. Do you think the positives outweigh the negatives in terms of being valuable to a band? I think it’s still very beneficial but it”s certainly getting more and more crazy! I think it’s starting to turn into a massive music festival because I remember the first year we went and you could get in and see bands but now if you go to see a band, you basically can’t get in. By the time the band you want to see is starting, you’re pretty much begging to get in.
So are you guys starting to think about the next album or are you just concentrating on touring at the moment? Yeah very much so. In March we went to LA for a week and did some recording and made fourteen demos and so we’ll probably go back in August and finish that off.
Has the song writing process changed since the last time around? Um, I think it’s getting easier it’s not like pulling teeth anymore like it used to be, it seems to come more naturally which is different. But it’s the same old shit really.
And is that just because you guys have played together longer or is it because you have a more focused idea of what Dappled Cities is? I think it’s a bit of both. The demos we do are unbelievably confusing, you don’t really want to listen to them back-to-back we’re genre hopping a bit too much for anyone’s liking so I think we need to sit down and work that out. But I think us being together for this long makes a difference and we kind of just do stuff now.
How would you describe the vibe of the new demos? I’d describe them as a weird mix of The Breakfast Club and some angry art rock (laughs) it kind of gets around.
Is there a scene in the middle where the 5 of you smoke a joint in the library and bond over your differences? Yeah!
So what’s your plans for the rest of the year? What’s the Dappled timeline? Well we’re going to do some touring until the end of May and then we go to Hong Kong and then we come home for about 6 weeks I think and then we’ll come back and try to knock out this record in August and come over here [London] for some more festivals and then it’s Christmas!
Hong Kong seems like a really specific destination… Yeah it’s weird. There’s this music conference called “Music Matters” and we don’t know quite what to expect so I’m a bit curious.
Is it a music conference like South by Southwest where it’s bands and a whole heap of industry people? Yes exactly! But only for the Asian market it seems. But I really have no idea…
Is that business side of music a constant concern for you guys, not having the might of a major behind you… Yeah I guess so. I don’t like to be too wary of it because I think knowing too much about the music industry can become very depressing. A few years ago we used to all be involved in every aspect of it but I try to shy away from it these days. Like, I sort of prefer to play music and then just let whatever happens happen. It’s the same with any business really, if you get into the financials of anything you tend to get a bit sad.
So in that vein, do you guys have other jobs or is the band your sole source of income now? When we have to we’ll work. We’ve all got jobs that we can come and go from but obviously when we’re away we don’t work but then when we go back we try to do what we can.
So when you get back are your shows going to change – are you going to introduce anything else into the mix? Yeah well there’s obviously going to be some new songs and I think we’ve got a laser show, with real lasers, for some reasons everyone’s just become obsessed with lasers. I don’t quite know when that happened but I seem to have missed it. But everyone else has gone laser crazy.
Is it a majority rules situation or is it like everyone has to concur for a decision to be made? (Laughs) It depends. Like, it was majority rules for the name “Zounds” because Ned thought it was the worst thing he’s ever heard in his entire life. But it got to the point where we just kept going through names and it’d be four of us, against one of us and so he lost (laughs) but most of the time its pretty equal.
That’s the beauty of democracy I guess. Okay so finally I wanted to ask, for your shows internationally, is there an Australian sound that you think Dappled is a characteristic of? Yeah I think so. I do think Australian music has a certain vibe and whether you see that as negative or positive I guess is your own opinion but I don’t think you can ever really escape where you come from whether it be the way we perform or whatever, there’s always an Australian vibe.
Have you met up with any Aussies in London yet? Yeah there’s heaps here like Sarah Blasko is here, Philadelphia Grand Jury are coming in a week or so…they’re sort of all over the shop, everyone comes and goes.
Well dude thanks so much for your time and good luck with the rest of the tour in England. Thanks so much and we”ll speak soon.
