Chromeo Interview

Sorry for the impromptu vacation I took from the blog...busy week.

Last Monday I interviewed the synth pop duo Chromeo for Big Shot Magazine. The three of us met on a very rain day, at the Atlas Cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. While keyboardist Patrick Gemayel (aka P-Thug) seemed a bit annoyed at my tardiness (I was ten minutes late due to the awful, traffic inducing weather), as soon as singer/guitarist David Macklovitch (aka Dave 1) showed up, all was calm and relaxed, resulting in a very comfortable and animated interview. Dave did most of the talking, but P provided some very interesting insight on the instrument setup, as well as the songwriting process. We talked about their shows, the cons and pros of being a duo, their dislike of Ital Disco, and most importantly, their new album Business Casual, due out September 14. The feature I am currently writing on the interview is expected to be the cover story of Big Shot's next issue, due out sometime in October. Until then, here are a few highlights to whet your appetite. 

ME: Can you tell me about the "Don't Turn The Lights On" video? First off, who directed it?

DAVE: Keith Scofield. We picked the director first which is kind of unusual because most people usually do the treatment first. But I knew I wanted to work with him from the jump. We went back and forth with ideas for a while, and he had the idea of making the video something of a literal interpretation of the song, which is the lights go on and off etc, and then we kinda added - when the lights come back on, things can shift around, and he added the idea of the eyes being cut out. We knew it would be a lot weirder.



ME: Dave, you once taught at Columbia. This might be an aobvious question you get a lot, but did you teach any of the Vampire Weekend guys?

DAVE: No, but I knew Ezra [Koenig] from the first year I actually enrolled at Columbia. It's an interesting story with him, He was at the first ever Chromeo show we did here in NY back in 2002 or 03. It was our 2nd show EVER. We barely had 5 songs. We opened for The Streets at Bowery Ballroom...He was at the show to go see The Streets, and he discovered us and came up to me at school the next week, that’s how far back it goes.

ME: If there was a movie that you feel your music would fit well into, what would it be?

DAVE: Ghostbusters.