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Francis of Francis and The Lights Interview

Francis Farewell Starlite is not your average frontman. Hell, I don’t even know if Francis has an average bone in his body, but it translates to some really interesting work.

If you’ve heard href="http://francisandthelights.muxtape.com/" > his music or seen any of href="http://www.youtube.com/user/francisandthelights" >his videos, you’ll know how hard it is to describe the band that is Francis And The Lights. There’s bits of soul, rock, pop, hip-hop and everything else fused into something that is definitely unique.

He just recently finished touring with Drake and MGMT (on separate tours) and we managed to get a hold of him for an interview.

MVRemix: I noticed the video for href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INcUV8ygIjo" >“Darling It’s Alright” was directed by Jake Schreier who used to play keys in the band. Was this a concept you both came up with together? Was it easier to work with some one you know so well?

Francis Starlite: Jake Schreier and I intend to collaborate on more music videos in the future. Both Darling, it’s Alright and “The Top” were true collaborations between he and I, from beginning to end.

MVRemix: What inspires your music? />

Francis Starlite: The potential to make something good.

MVRemix: What is it like to take your sound to larger venues? Does it translate well or do you prefer the intimacy and feel of smaller clubs? />

Francis Starlite: A large venue and large audience is a thrilling artistic proposition. Both are good though.

MVRemix: If you check out your href="http://francisandthelights.muxtape.com/" >muxtape you can see that there are all kinds of alternate versions of songs posted. Is this something done for fans to enjoy or for a more personal reason? Are your href="http://www.youtube.com/user/practicingthepiano" >piano lessons done for the same reason?

Francis Starlite: I do it because I would want to hear those alternate versions if i was a fan of Francis and the Lights. I release them because I think they are good in some way.

MVRemix: I read on the blog that there’s an upcoming concert film in the works. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Francis Starlite: I had to hold off working on a concert film because the performances, footage, and audio quality weren’t good enough. I hope to make a good concert film in the future.

MVRemix: Who first introduced you to href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style" >“The Elements Of Style” and why have you found that book so influential?

Francis Starlite: My mother. She gave me the book as a present. I will forever be deeply thankful for this. This book has affected and influenced my work and my life more than anything else. More than any band, friend, parent, or role model. When i first read it, i realized the errors of my ways, and set out to try and correct them. Some of my favorite rules are: “be clear,” “prefer the standard to the offbeat,” “omit needless words,” and, “work from a suitable design.” My stomach jumps just writing them down, right now.

MVRemix: Do you feel a lot different now that you have a full album to promote? How does this compare from releasing EPs in the past? />

Francis Starlite: I don’t think of this album as any different in importance than my previous releases.

MVRemix: What’s next for Francis And The Lights?

Francis Starlite: I hope to release more music in the future, and go on another tour before the year is over.

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Chromeo Interview

Interview conducted by Hugo Lunny, photographed by Natasha Davidson

Having found huge success with their last album, P-Thugg and Dave 1, otherwise known as Chromeo are back to Business as Casual. The duo have been touring and furthering their next album’s buzz off of the strength of the hit singles “Night By Night” and “Don’t Turn The Lights On.” Their internet buzz is quite powerful at the moment as most streaming sites feature the songs.

MVRemix: What made you decide to record the majority of “Business Casual” in Brooklyn, New York as opposed to in Montreal?

P-Thugg: We actually started [recording] in Montreal. All the demos and pre-production was completed in Montreal, then probably the second half in New York just for logistics because Dave is going to school over there. He’s taking a couple things, so we could actually be in the same city.

Dave 1: Everyday.

P-Thugg: So that we could physically go to the same studio everyday and work. There’s a good part of the work that we can do from a distance but there comes a point where we have to get together and record stuff.

MVRemix: How long did it take you to record “Business Casual” as a whole record?

Dave 1: It’s tough to quantify because I mean we were writing demos all the time, we were writing songs all the time. There’s little demos that were like three years old, two years old… But in terms of gathering all the ideas and recording all of it, I would say a good year/year and a half.

P-Thugg: On and off.

Dave 1: On and off, yeah.

MVRemix: What inspired the title?

Dave 1: [smirking] I made a reservation at a bit of a “dubious” restaurant. It was a tacky spot, I was embarrassed. And on the answering machine it said. “Dress code is business casual.” I thought it just had an 80′s resonance to it, you know? A yuppie meets Don Johnson, meets Huey Lewis thing. I told P[Thugg] that could be a funny title for the album and we liked it, but we thought it might have been too jokey. Then it just stayed in the back burner. We couldn’t think of a better title, and at one point my brother (DJ A-Trak) shot me a text saying, “You know what? I think you should keep Business Casual” and so we kept it. I’m really happy actually we’ve gotten great feedback.

MVRemix: From the recording process, how many songs would you say you recorded in total, and how many did you throw away?

Dave 1: None.

MVRemix: Not necessarily threw away, but how many were recorded for it that didn’t make it?

Dave 1: None.

P-Thugg: The selection process is pretty intense. So if we choose a song we know right away from a demo if we sing to each other, we know if it’s gonna turn into something or not.

Dave 1: There’s dozens and dozens of demos.

P-Thugg: There’s a lot of demos and a lot of ideas.

Dave 1: But in terms of what we choose to make an actual song out of, like what P [Thugg] said, when we’re going down that road, there’s no turning back. It’s gonna make it on the album.

MVRemix: Now I know there’s a French ballad on the album, will you be doing more music in French or was it that your main crowd is English and so you record the occasional French song?

Dave 1: We’ll do stuff in French if there’s more ideas in French. We don’t have anything against it, but we’ve never had a good French song idea. Now [with] that song it was fairly convincing, and it was fun to do so if there’s more, we’ll do more.

MVRemix: What would you say is the biggest misconception people have of Chromeo?

P-Thugg: [pondering] Well there was in the past this misconception that we were not serious and that we were ironic with music.

Dave 1: Definitely the irony part.

P-Thugg: I think that’s fading out with longevity with us keeping doing what we’re doing it’s running out. Other misconceptions… That we…

Dave 1: [interupting] That it’s me dancing in the “Night By Night” video. That’s the biggest misconception.

MVRemix: Yeah, I’d read that it was a stunt double…

Dave 1: Yeah, sadly yes. Ladies, I’m sorry. I have other talents; I make a mean scrambled egg.

MVRemix Camera Woman: Make a mean omelette.

Dave 1: She fell for it.

MVRemix Camera Woman:No? Not really. Not a good cook?

Dave 1: Me? Lousy, but my scrambled eggs are great. It’s a start.

MVRemix Camera Woman: That’s great, at least you can do that.

Dave 1: See, easy.

href="http://mvremix.com/rock_blogs/2010/08/25/chromeo-continuing-on-with-business-as-casual/" title="chromeo interview">Chromeo Interview Continued

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Chromeo Interview

Interview conducted by Hugo Lunny, photographed by Natasha Davidson

MVRemix: So with regards to the situation with Chromeo on the internet, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the new Canadian laws that have been passed with huge fines being introduced. So if you have any illegal copy you can be penalized, where do you stand because your music is so widespread?

Dave 1: I don’t care if they bootleg our music. Let them get it as long as they like it, we really don’t care. It’s so obsolete to think in those terms. The reality is, you’ve got to let the technology dictate how you market and consume music instead of having this repressive or oppressive approach where you’re like, “You can’t do this, because… no!” First of all downloading music is on it’s way out, it’s only gonna be streaming music. You’ve heard of Spotify? (A cloud server for music) Record companies are trying to block Spotify in North America. I’m sure that’s gonna end up happening or something that’s equivalent to it. Then you don’t even have music on your computer, it’s all up in a cloud somewhere. You can listen to anything you want at any time. So I think the businesses just have to adapt to what consumers are doing. So personally we don’t care.

P-Thugg: Quite frankly at a certain level it benefits the bands more than harming them.

Dave 1: I’ll say this, if our album leaks before street date, we’ll be really upset. That’s gonna suck because that just sabotages the momentum that we’re trying to build to get excitement around one event and awareness around one event. If the record leaks then it just ruins everything. So that’d be really upsetting, but after the album’s out if some people wanna buy it, then you buy the record. If it “fell off a truck” and landed into your hard drive, come see us at a show. Buy a t-shirt…

P-Thugg: Half of the bands that blew up today it’s because people had access to their music.

Dave 1: But again, paradoxically, if it happens before the actual release date it would suck. It’s not exactly about losing sales, it’s about losing this momentum that we’ve been building for months.

MVRemix: A la “Fight Club,” “If you could fight any celebrity, who would you fight?”

Dave 1: [smirking] Oh that’s mean.

MVRemix: As a joke… who annoys you in the media?

Dave 1: Stephen Harper, that’s it.

MVRemix: Would you win?

Dave 1: Who knows? He’d probably show up with the rifle he borrowed from Sarah Palin.

P-Thugg: I’m backing Dave up.

Dave 1: Fight the power! Literally, right?

MVRemix: I know that you’ve been saying Business Casual is quite like “Mamma’s Boy” in terms of the sound.

Dave 1: Yeah, but it’s also like “Night By Night,” there’s a lot of fun in there too.

MVRemix: The question around that was you know that MGMT had a very different follow up to their last album.

Dave 1: I actually really like their new album by the way. I really liked it.

MVRemix: Same here, but a lot of people were so so on it…

Dave 1: We didn’t do that. That was actually… We’re not gonna do that. I mean you heard “Night By Night”? Did you hear “Don’t Turn The Lights On”?

MVRemix: Oh yeah.

Dave 1: It’s not that different… It’s a little smoother and more textured..

P-Thugg: There’s no change, it’s just we concentrated on a couple of different branches from Fancy Footwork and it’s conceptual.

Dave 1: We’re not losing anyone. I really respect what MGMT did because it’s bold and I think with their status they can afford to do that. It’s a bold gesture and actually the new album is dope, I really like it. But with us, in a way, we were a little bit more conservative that we just tried to find the middle ground between giving our audience something new and also something that they expect from the brand that we’ve built.

P-Thugg: And also feel that we’re not stagnated. That we’re actually have a bit of an evolution in music.

Dave 1: That’s important.

MVRemix: There’s something that has become expected in live shows. With regards to the encore, rarely have I seen a point where it’s not planned.

Dave 1: The Strokes don’t do an encore.

MVRemix: Really?

Dave 1: Traditionally they never did an encore.

MVRemix: I’d like to see them. But regardless of the crowd’s reception, there’s always an encore…

Dave 1: And we’re suckers for that too. I mean we have a whole stage where we’re like, [sarcastically] “We’re walking out now!” “Oh my god, they’re singing the Chromeo chant,” “Here we are, we’re back!” To be honest with you, I don’t see encores as a real gauge of how the concert is going. I like encores because bands use encores to perform another type of song. I mean, look at for instance The XX. I’m sure you’ve seen them, they do that wonderful cover of Womack & Womack “Teardrops” as an encore song. Vampire Weekend did Fleetwood Mac “Everywhere” as an encore song. I like the encore because it just switches the mood of the show. So what we do in our encore is… It’s bogus, but whatever… Is we actually have our ballad segment because the energy from the show is down, we’ve gotten Fancy Footwork out of the way, Bonafied [Lovin']‘s out of the way. So we come out, P [Thugg] does “Mamma’s Boy,” and it just becomes another atmosphere, another ambience. It’s more of a sing along slow jam hour. So we do that, sometimes we do an Eagles cover. We do “100%” which is a nice, feel good song. We use it more as a platform to switch up the mood of the show.

MVRemix: Speaking of your show, you’ve been touring a lot over the past couple of years. Are there any songs that you’d like to say, “Well I like this a lot, but maybe I could leave this song for a year.”

Dave 1: Yeah.

P-Thugg: Yeah. We just did that on this tour.

Dave 1: But I think we should change it, I don’t know.

P-Thugg: It’s a constant battle, because some cities love “this” song and you’re like “It’s in the set forever” and you wanna change the set, then you’re like “Actually most of the cities don’t really care much.”

Dave 1: It’s also the pacing, you’ve got to go one known song, one lesser favourite… It’s kind of like manipulating people’s emotions but you never really know how it’s gonna work. It’s very speculative as well.

MVRemix: Any last words for your fans?

Dave 1: Don’t turn the lights on.

Popularity: unranked [?]

MVRemix caught up with Chromeo on August 12th, 2010 at The Commodore Ballroom when they passed through Vancouver, BC to promote the new Chromeo album “Business Casual.” We discussed the new album, the point of the encore and whether Chromeo would make more music in French amongst other topics. Interview conducted by Hugo Lunny, filmed [...]

Popularity: unranked [?]

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Interview filmed by Joshua Grafstein

MVRemix.com caught up with Caribou when they passed through Vancouver, BC on May 29th to perform at The Rickshaw Theatre.

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Growing Interview

by Heather Snowball and Amber Bryant-Peller

MVRemix: Have you ever been to Vancouver before?

Kevin: Once, a long time ago. />

Sadie: I’ve never been here before. It’s my first time.

Joe: We played a show here in 2004 or something.

Kevin: Yeah, that’s sounds about right.

Joe: And then I’ve been here before just randomly with some friends.

MVRemix: How has your tour gone so far?

Kevin: Pretty good. />

Joe: Really good. />

Sadie: Great. />

Joe: I think every tour has its own issues and we solved a bunch of issues from the last tour and now we have a bunch of new issues on this tour. It’s like every tour is going to have its own problems. But the things that have gone good have gone really good. We have a sound person now which has made life a lot easier.

MVRemix: And then your touring down into California from here?

Joe: Yeah we play… Olympia, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz.

MVRemix: So do you have a certain feel or vibe that you are aiming for in your shows?

Kevin: Obviously we want it to be fun. And we’d also like it to be a little unique. Fun. Unique. Funique.

Joe: We don’t think about it too much. We just really want to have the set go well. Have it sound super good and then hopefully everything falls into place.

MVRemix: Do you have any preshow traditions?

Sadie: We have a wide range of tastes.

Joe: Each of us, alone, have our own wide tastes and we all kind of obsess about our own things. And I don’t think it is conscious effort to be inspired by a certain thing. I don’t think we are inspired by a certain band or anything like that. For me personally, stuff kind of washes over me and then things pop out and then maybe I’m curious about other things and so it shifts and goes on.

MVRemix: Do you do a lot of improvisation on stage?

Kevin: Not really, no not at all.

Sadie: No, no.

Joe: Certainly not in the sense of the way people understand improvisation. Sometimes there is a little bit of play in between the songs which can be unstructured but for the most part it is fairly set.

MVRemix: How did you come up with the name Growing?

Sadie: I named the band. No, I’m just kidding, I wasn’t in the band at the beginning.

Joe: We just came up with a bunch of different names, like 10 years ago and Growing seemed to be the one that stuck. At the time we were a pretty heavy, kind of crazy/loud, brutal band that was super vicious sounding so I don’t think it has the same connotations now as it did then.

MVRemix: But you still feel it fits?

Joe: Seems to be okay. It’s been long enough now that it is purely abstract. It doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. It just happens to be the collection of letters that signifies what we do.

Kevin: We wanted a verb too.

MVRemix: Why did you want a verb?

Kevin: I don’t know, to be totally honest with you. I think it was just better than a noun.

MVRemix: So you were both (Kevin and Joe) in bands before Growing?

Joe: Yeah, nothing too serious. We played in a hardcore band together and we also did some stuff that was just the two of us with just guitars. We decided to put the two bands together and that was when we called it Growing. We, sort of, melded the two styles and found some middle ground.

MVRemix: How did you guys first meet and get to know each other?

Joe: Kevin and I had moved to New York around 2003/2004 and that is around the same time Sadie moved there. And we had similar circles of friends and so we met her through them and we played some shows together with our bands.

MVRemix: Do you find New York is a good scene for music?

Sadie: Yes and no.

Joe: It’s a tough place to be a musician.

Sadie: Yeah, it’s hard there to find space and time. But then there are also a lot of venues to play at and there are tons of other musicians and lots of energy and sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. There are both extremes.

MVRemix: How did you guys first get into music?

Joe: I was just a kid. I liked music a lot when I was a kid. I obsessed about it.

Kevin: There is not a lot to do when you are a kid, especially before video games.

Sadie: We didn’t have computers when we were children.

Kevin: Not that there is anything wrong with that. But yeah, we had to entertain ourselves and music was a fun thing to do. You could meet a bunch of weird people and hang out with a bunch of weirdos. It was exciting, at least that’s how I remember it, because you had to use all these weird channels to find out when and where something was happening and it was almost like it wasn’t supposed to be happening but it was. And then you would go to this place and get a taste for beer, hang out, meet people…I kind of feel like an old man. In an accent. We used to crowd around a fire with a banjo…

Joe: One of the reasons that Kevin and I became such good friends is because our upbringing as teenagers is similar. We both lived in suburban dead zones. So when you find that punk rock world it is kind of a big deal.

Kevin: It’s exciting.

Joe: And you start to feel, not to get too corny, that there is a place that is not like the world you live in and that you want to get out of that. That was a big draw for me, I think.

MVRemix: Do you have any future aspirations for your music?

Kevin: That is survives. laughs

Sadie: I think we are all trying to figure out how to make another record and getting new ideas for it.

Kevin: And definitely one thing that we never do is set a specific goal. It’s important to us, creatively speaking, to let things happen really naturally. We don’t say, this next record let’s make a country record. We kind of try and just let things…

Sadie: We try and let the music dictate what we do.

Kevin: And there are going to be other outside influences but we try not to control it too much.

Joe: We just let ourselves be curious and hope that where we go with that can fit with each other and it usually does.

MVRemix: Do you have plans for after this tour?

Joe: Yeah, we will probably start trying to make some new songs. We have two new songs now, in this set and then we will try and make some more over the summer and maybe tour again in the fall, if we can. And try and start thinking about recording.

MVRemix: Do you have any parting words for your fans?

Kevin: Where are you?

[All laughing]

Sadie: Come to the show. Come see us please.

Joe: We like you.

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Ron Contour Interview by Terri-Ann Thomas

After a five-Year hiatus, Ron Contour chose to get rid of his bee colonies and come back to the music industry. “What kind of MC keeps bees,” said Contour.

With intent to never leave the game again, Contour has proven that he’s dedicated his time to making quality music with [...]

Full Ron Contour Interview

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Swazy Baby Interview by Terri-Ann Thomas
More than just a rapper, Swazy Baby has created a buzz in the industry with hard work and dedication. At such a young age, he not only writes his own music but also produces and makes his own beats. Newly signed to Slip N Slide records, known for talents like [...]

Popularity: unranked [?]

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MVRemix caught up with at King Khan and The Shrines when they performed in Vancouver, BC at Venue, April 12th 2010

Filmed by Joshua Grafstein

Popularity: unranked [?]

Raheem DeVaughn
interviewed by Terri-Ann Thomas
Raheem DeVaughn is no stranger to the music industry. From his debut with, The Love Experience, to his brand new album, The Love & War Masterpeace, he has continued to contribute timeless music and remain relevant.
His message is simple: Love, empowerment, encouragement and strength. Raheem has used his [...]

Popularity: unranked [?]