. . . And so, we arrive at the third and final installment of our Mark Mortimer interview trilogy. In the final act, DC Fontana's founding Father talks Meshkalina, Art and Soul and . . . the future!SF: DC really seem to place a large emphasis on art, or as you call it 'art and soul'. This almost seems like a lost concept on many modern bands. Why do you think that is?
But it’s an important part of the band and we do see ourselves as more than just songwriters and musicians and it’s why we spend so much time and money on making sure our records have a cool look and are value for money and why we paint pictures with our video output.
This is why we really revel in working with talented photographers, dancers, painters, film-makers, graphic designers, costume makers, performance artists, lighting wizards, folk-dancers and much more besides.
Being in a group should be so much more than knocking off a few chords and lyrics – it should be an exhilarating ride and a proper look into the heart of the group’s raison d’être in an honest and candid way.
We are always keen to work with people who are awash with original and interesting ideas and people who can take on board our own individual personalities and help twist things. This is another great thing about having such a large group in terms of numbers: you get so many different personalities and artistic temperaments and diverse trains of thought.
Thankfully we all get on really great so we don’t have to bash ten shades of shit out of each other to create something musical or artistic.
On the ‘Six Against Eight’ video – which we turned into an eight-minute short film – we paid homage to Pat McGoohan and his ‘Prisoner’ TV show and on the more recent ‘Meshkalina’ video we wore hand-crafted animal masks while having fun exploring our love of late 60s and early 70s folk-horror movies like ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘Blood On Satan’s Claw’ etc. The ‘Abbesses’ video sees us taking elements of ‘The Avengers’, “The Girl On A Motorcycle’ and some of those late 50s nouvelle vague movies while we force our collective tongue into our cheek and have a laugh.
But the music side is clearly vital and obviously there are times when just picking up the guitar, cranking the amp up loud and letting rip in a sort of primal rock & roll way is enough.
Why do I think this is a lost concept on some bands of today? In short I am not really sure though I think that sadly in today’s fairly mundane modern world where the music industry has imploded it’s pretty sad that some people are more interested in generating clichés or re-hashing what’s happened before.
The thing is: there are lots of great people making great music today so it’s not all doom and gloom by any stretch but the problem is these people, including ourselves, getting our voices and ideas heard and seen.
SF: Who’s idea was it to cover Traffic Sound’s classic ‘Meshkalina’ and how worried were you about doing it justice?
MM: I was already well into Traffic Sound and have always been partial to Latin vibes and South American psych but Rob Bailey, the head honcho with the New Untouchables had suggested it might make a great track for us and I agreed.
If you play a cover version it’s important not to be lame and with ‘Meshky’ we injected our own thing into the veins of the song so that new highs and lows course through it and help give it a new freshness, a new lease of life. Our version is definitely a DC interpretation. Again, as I’ve already said, what’s the point in re-enacting the past?
As Dobie Gray once sang, “the original is still the greatest” so it’s a good thing to be worried about doing it justice. Like everything in music people have subjective views so the public will make their minds up but we did try and do the song justice.
In all honesty though, we’ve had a really great reaction to our own take on ‘Meshkalina’ and it’s become a live favourite so I think it's a case of mission accomplished.
SF: And finally, what does the future hold for DC Fontana?
MM: We will be heading into the studio before and after Christmas to record new material towards our next releases and I hope we can release an EP next spring with the next DC album coming as fast as we can possibly can after that.
A lot of it sadly depends on available funds because it costs us a lot of money for us to do the interesting things we do and everyone in the music world is really struggling right now so it’s a case of trying to fight your way through the jungle of cash crap as best as you can.
The days when a group can go into a studio for a month or two and record a whole album in one fell swoop are gone unless someone somewhere is pumping money into you but everything we do is self-financed so inevitably it will take us time to make the next album as and when we can afford to do it.
I think we’ve made great strides this year and we will be looking to keep building on what we’ve achieved so far, spread our music as wide and far as we possibly can and continuing to make interesting music and art.
* DC Fontana's new album La Contessa on DCTone records at www.dcfontana.com *
Until next time,
Keep on Keepin on,
Baia
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