Fancy that

>> Dave One of synth-funk smoothies Chromeo on matching Michael Jackson, the Ed Bangers hook-up and the elusive Daryl Hall

NO JOKE: Chromeo’s Dave One and Pee Thug

by SCOTT C

You have to talk to Montreal’s own Dave One and Pee Thug if you want the lowdown on the smooth, synth-laden pop-funk of Chromeo, primed to drop their second album, on Tiga’s Turbo Recordings. The sounds of Fancy Footwork are far away from anything you might associate with Outremont, or arguably with Dave One’s previous project, the hip hop unit Obscure Disorder, but those sounds have already caught the ear of a legion of hungry fans worldwide. While you may have been lucky enough to catch Chromeo performing alongside A-Trak, who is Dave One’s younger brother, you’re more likely to have seen them stealing the show from a headlining act, which they’ve done more than once. The Mirror caught up to Dave One, who was in Paris getting ready to enjoy a meal with the Ed Banger boys (Chromeo guest on the latest album by EB’s DJ Mehdi).

Mirror: I can honestly say that nobody is taking electro-pop-funk where you guys are taking it in 2007.

Dave One: Naw, but we pushed it even further on this new one.

M: There is stuff on this record that I would definitely say fucks with pop dynamics.

DO: Yeah! The sound is so clean because I wanted it to sound like Thriller. You know how when you listen to a Michael Jackson record, there’s almost no low end, but when you hear it in the club, it sounds crazy? That’s how we had this guy mix this record. Like real pop mixes from the ’80s.

M: So, at the end of the day, you want it to sound good in the club.

DO: Not the way that a house or techno person would look at it. Like I said, we just studied Thriller, and how Quincy Jones mixes would sound back in the day, with all the reverb all over the place, and just enough low end, vocals up front. The guy who mixed our record is incredible, so we tried to do something along those lines.

M: So who actually mixed it?

DO: His name is Philippe Zdar, and he’s a pioneer of French house music. He was one of the guys in Cassius, and he also mixed Phoenix’s first album, which was one of our all-time favourites.

Drastic scholastic

M: Are you guys spending all your time in the studio when you’re not travelling, or do you actually find time to hit the club wherever you happen to be?

DO: To be honest with you, if I’m not doing music, then I’m doing my school stuff. That’s really it for me. I mean, we go out a little bit, but not like we used to go out on Friday nights at Blizzarts for Brass Knuckles! I’ll put it to you like that (laughs). We’re just gigging a lot and DJing a lot, touring and doing this record while I’m in school grinding.

M: Can you break down your current school grind for me? What are you up to your eyes in these days?

DO: I’m in Paris on a scholarship doing research for my dissertation, so I’m at the library every day if possible, and then at night I come home and handle all the Chromeo stuff on e-mail, and then it’s time to go tour. We’re leaving on Sunday.

M: You know that people think you’re steady balling.

DO: Yeah, but you’ve known me since forever, and it’s always been like that for me.

M: In all the travelling you guys have done in the past two years, have you been able to connect with any of the classic acts whose music you try to emulate? Any chance meetings?

DO: Not as much as we want to, but here and there, definitely. Egyptian Lover left some shit on our MySpace page that was dope, and Nate Dogg invited us to his house and recorded vocals to one of our songs, which was incredible. The guys from the Roots came up to Pee Thug at an airport and said, “We love your shit,” but I’ve never met Daryl Hall or Larry Blackmon or anybody like that. When we were in Miami, there was these British dudes called Bugz in the Attic, who I don’t even know, but they ran up on us like straight fans! Even Feist here in Paris told us she was a fan, and asked us to remix a song off her new album.

M: That’s amazing. It must be really flattering when someone you respect musically gives you some love.

DO: Well, when we came out, we had to fight so hard against the ironic joke-band stigma, so to go from that to doing remixes for Ed Banger and getting love from all these people, it feels really good.

Big Banger theory

M: Tell me a little bit more about the whole Ed Banger connection. That combo is getting a lot of love here in Montreal and around the world, but how did it happen initially?

DO: I’m on my way out to dinner with some of those dudes right now. I’ve known DJ Mehdi since Obscure Disorder’s “2004” came out. He was a hip hop producer and he wanted me to make beats for some of his projects in France. So we’ve actually been in touch since 1999, and we’ve been tight ever since. You know my hip hop shit was serious, and it seems like we’re in another world now, but some people made the connection.

M: You still got any hip hop shit up your sleeve, Dave?

DO: Naw. I mean, my brother is doing that. He’s holding that down. For now, I’m happy doing Chromeo because it’s really a challenge for me making proper songs. We really tried to take a pop songwriter approach on this new record.

M: It makes me smile when I think about how excited you guys used to get about jamming here in Montreal, and to see how far you’ve taken that is really amazing. It’s crazy to me!

DO: It’s good though. It’s been such an uphill climb for us and we’ve been doing it against all odds. We’re not from the dance-music world. People thought we were an electroclash thing, and there were so many different backlashes and people hating and all that, but I think it’s great that we even have a shot at a second album. It’s one step further than the first record.