Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Young Love Interview

Sorry this took so long to put up - I lost my recorder. I promise, I'm not gone forever.


Ben and Dan throwin' up the "Y-L"

Ben Loves Music:
So when was the last time you were in Philly?

Dan Keyes:
The last time I was here was with Lady Sovereign. That tour was amazing – it was a blast.

BLM:
What were your influences for this band? Because you went from a band like Recover, which was a little difference

DK:
Well, I mean, if you listen to Recover, it’s the same song writing, the same song construction, same lyricist.

BLM:
What was the process of going from that (Recover) to this (Young Love)?

DK:
I didn’t really make that decision, that decision kind of made me. I moved up to New York to kind of get away from music for a while. I had been on the road since I was 18, and I was in Austin, two weeks out of every three months. Then I took a long break, if you want to want to call six or seven months a long break. I was busing tables and working at American Apparel, and I ended up hanging with some DJs who started spinning my stuff, and gave some tracks to my friend Jeff Reed, who’s a DJ also. He passed them along to some of his friends, and labels started coming at me. I ended up signing with Island/Def Jam, which so far has been amazing, really good.

BLM:
Did he (Jeff) do the Young Love mixtape that was the Houston and Atlanta hip-hop mixed with your songs?

DK:
No, that was a different friend. It was before the record came out, and no one really knew what it was going to end up being like. That’s sort of been the point – to keep ‘em guessing. I don’t want anyone to be locked into a scene, or with certain bands. I want to start something, to put something out there. This is our first headlining tour, and it really has been its own scene so far, man. Every night has been fun; it’s been a dance party every night. I can’t think of one show on this tour that hasn’t been a blast. There’s always been a great energy in the room, and then tomorrow we end the tour in New York at the Bowery Ballroom.

BLM:
What music influenced you and this album? What have you been listening to?

DK:
I just bought a bunch of new records - The Knife, the Peter, Bjorn, and John record, the Charlotte Gainesbourg. Air did the music for it. And I bought the new Bloc Party, which I love. It doesn’t matter what they could have put out, I still would have loved it. I’ve been listening to a lot of French bands, like Air, Daft Punk, Phoenix, and m83 – it really influenced this album a lot with the electronic side of things. I recorded this album outside of London in this little town, Bath, with this really cool producer Steve Osbourne, who’s worked with U2, New Order, Thrice. And he really brought a cool Euro, pulsing sound to the record. I also did a few tracks with Dante Ross, who’s more of a hip-hop producer. He actually did the new single “Find A New Way”.

I love the Cars, Blondie, the Police. I’m psyched to try to go see the Police, but this tour ends, and then I have twelve days off, then we go play SXSW, and then over to Europe for a little while. I’m really excited to go to SXSW, because we were recording a record there last year. I recorded tracks in Austin, New York, London, and LA – and I wanted this so that the album would have a world feel to it. I’ve recorded so many lo-fi records, stuff that was recorded in my friend’s room-style. I wanted to record this all over the place, and make this have a broad feel, even from a songwriting standpoint, I wasn’t trying to write from an introverted perspective, I wanted it to be for everyone.

BLM:
How did you get hooked up with MTV for “Find A New Way”?

DK:
They came at me. I was told they wanted to use my song for a reality show, and at first, I was “Uh…. No…. no.” And then when I got more information, that it was a show about dancing, see I spent a few months out of every year of the last fifteen years at an arts school, so I’ve taken jazz and tap and ballet. And to have this be a song for a show about dancers, I was totally cool with.

BLM:
Thanks a ton for the interview, man.

DK:
Hey, it’s no problem. Enjoy the show.

Young Love's album Too Young To Fight It is out now on Island/Def Jam records. You can visit his MySpace here to check out his music, including a free download of the Lindbergh Palace remix of "Tragedy".

Labels: , , ,

posted by b, 3/21/2007 06:23:00 PM | link | |