You must have been interviewed a thousand times, are there any particular questions you hate being asked? Hmmm. Let’s see… You know, they’re all fine until they’ve been asked like 150 times. So it should all be pretty easy with me.
Tell us about your new album, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, how would you describe it? Ummm. Let’s see…. Eclectic, like all of our albums. Ummm… Hey, isn’t it your job to describe the albums?
Haha. Fair point… …It’s a really good exercise in what we do best, which is experiment with sounds and production techniques.
Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits plays on “Love Song”. How did that come about? He’s the Dobro guy!
The what? The Dobro – the little guitar thing. I don’t know, I’ve never seen a picture, but it’s on like the cover of one of their albums, or something. I need to look into that because I keep getting teased in interviews because I don’t really know. But it has something to do with the Dobro.
You’ve toured Australia several times. But have you seen much of the country? A bit here and there. It’s so hard, you end up in airports and hotels so much when you tour. We’re definitely going to spend some time on the coast this time. We had a day vacation in New Zealand last time, on Waiheke Island [Auckland]. It was great. It was beautiful, we went fishing and barbecued and ate four meals a day, and two deserts. This time we’re going to stay in Australia and check some of it out.
Where will you go? I would get in so much trouble if I told!
I was hoping we could all come and join you though. Haha. Yeah, exactly.
Your song “Bohemian Like You” is a big hit on Singstar. Have you ever played? What is that? [TNT explains]. Haha. I would be awful at that!
The DiG! documentary showed an intriguing relationship between The Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre. Are you still friends? Yeah, I mean, the film is definitely documenting some things. But it was kind of extrapolated from so much footage that you could really tell any story that you want. We were friends with those guys before and after [the bands fell out]. We see Anton, we’re actually doing a show together on our next US tour. It’s a great movie, it’s hilarious. But it’s part Spinal Tap. It’s not completely real.
Were you annoyed by that aspect of the film? We were disappointed, because there were so many years of good footage that she could have used and it ended up with all this drama and stuff. It’s a great bit of entertainment, but [director Ondi Timoner] had the raw materials to make a lot more out of it. But maybe that wasn’t as interesting and funny and wouldn’t have won her any awards. So I don’t really blame her for doing it the way she did. It’s just, of course, not the way we would have edited it.
Lastly, being in a band seems like the best job in the world. Is it? Absolutely! I think it is sooo super fun. We travel, we meet tonnes of people, we do photoshoots and videos and play big rock shows on stage and have fancy dinners and meet other rock stars. It’s, like, awesome!
Any idea what you’d be doing if you weren’t in a band? Probably trying to get in a band.
Earth to the Dandy Warhols is out now. The band plays six shows in Australia from October 28. For info, www.dandywarhols.com
